Beyond the Headlines: Our Top 10 Takeaways from the 2026 Western States CREF Conference

Slatt Capital was proud to return last week as a Platinum Sponsor of this year’s Western States CREF Conference, hosted by the California MBA in Las Vegas. Now in its third decade, Western States remains the premier gathering for commercial real estate finance professionals across the western U.S., and this year’s lineup delivered on that promise, with two-plus days of economic outlooks, capital markets panels, and property-sector deep dives.

Cody Charfauros, Principal and Managing Director of Slatt Capital, continues to serve in conference leadership and on the California MBA board, a role that traces back to Barry Slatt, our late founder, whose early involvement helped shape both CMBA and WSCREF into what they are today. That legacy of advocacy and support was on full display this year, from the opening breakfast through the closing debt-fund roundtable.

Here are our Top 10 takeaways from the sessions and conversations we tracked.

1. The economy is “muddling through,” and the 10-year Treasury is a key focus of the conference.

The conference’s opening economic keynote laid out a base case of steady 2%-ish GDP growth, AI-driven productivity gains and a labor market at effective full employment, but warned that the term premium on the 10-year Treasury has swung from negative during COVID to roughly 80-100 basis points today, and that persistent deficits mean rates likely stay “higher for longer.” That reality showed up everywhere: panel after panel referenced the 10-year trading near 4.85-4.92%, a level multiple speakers said was already “baked in” to spreads and pricing even as the Fed weighed its next rate decision. One recurring podcast segment on “beyond the headlines” offered a useful framework for making sense of it all: a property clock, a capital clock and a credit clock, arguing that loan maturities are the forcing mechanism that brings all three into alignment, for better or worse, market by market.

2. Agencies are still the biggest lever in multifamily, but banks and bridge lenders are closing the gap.

On the capital markets panel, participants agreed Fannie and Freddie remain highly competitive on quality sponsors and stabilized cash flow, but banks have re-entered the bridge space aggressively as portfolio allocations to CRE recover.

3. Insurance and refinancing remain the two biggest underwriting challenges.

Western markets are seeing persistent, sticky insurance inflation tied to wildfire risk, in sharp contrast to the Sunbelt and Florida markets where premium growth has moderated. Meanwhile, borrowers refinancing 3-4% legacy debt into today’s 6%+ coupons are reshaping deal economics across every property type.

4. Office is recovering, unevenly.

New York still commands roughly 43% of national office loan origination volume, more than the entire western U.S. combined. San Francisco stands out among western metros thanks to AI-driven leasing demand, while Seattle and Denver continue to lag on both occupancy and credit metrics. Life sciences hasn’t turned the corner yet either, with vacancy above 30% in top Bay Area submarkets, panelists were split on timing but agreed a meaningful lease-up recovery is still several years out.

5. Multifamily and self storage are proving resilient, mostly a supply story.

Delinquency remains low in both sectors nationally, even where rent growth is flat, with panelists framing current stress as a timing and absorption issue rather than a structural one. Denver and Chicago were flagged as the multifamily markets under the most pressure; Phoenix has stabilized faster than expected.

6. Private capital is solving for equity gaps and creative structures, not just proceeds.

On the private debt and bridge lending panels, featuring known lenders and several regional debt funds, speakers described increasingly creative structures (subordinate mezzanine positions, entitlement-stage bridge loans, negotiated note purchases) to get complex deals across the line where traditional proceeds alone don’t work.

7. Sponsorship quality and relationships still win deals.

Across nearly every panel, from agency lending to bridge debt to office construction financing, the same theme emerged: in a market defined by higher-for-longer rates and tighter underwriting, the deals that get done are the ones backed by proven sponsors, transparent communication and lenders willing to extend, restructure and stay at the table through a full cycle.

8. Adaptive reuse works, but only when basis, physical layout, and entitlement risk all line up.

A dedicated construction and conversions panel, featuring a national engineering/environmental consultant, a bridge lender active in the $2-20 million range and sponsors with hands-on conversion experience, dug into what’s really driving the office-to-residential, hotel-to-residential and other adaptive reuse deals getting done across the West. The panel’s consensus: physical building characteristics matter as much as market demand. Narrow, older floorplates with more perimeter windows and simpler mechanical systems convert far more easily (and cheaply) than deep, modern office boxes, and panelists pointed to a widely cited San Francisco office-to-residential conversion as a case study in getting the basis, market, and execution all right at once. On the risk side, speakers flagged environmental unknowns on older sites (updated Phase I assessments turning up legacy contamination that wasn’t on record decades ago) and entitlement timelines as the biggest threats to a project’s economics, one panelist described a hotel-to-residential conversion where a conditional-use-permit change took over two years to clear city council. Local tax structure was another recurring theme, with cities weighing transient occupancy tax revenue against new property tax assessments. Looking ahead 12 months, panelists said construction and labor costs, along with developer “FOMO” driving deals that don’t truly pencil, are the factors they’re watching most closely.

9. AI is already changing how loans get made, and relationships still decide who wins.

On the “AI, Relationships and Commercial Mortgage Originators” panel, the conversation stayed refreshingly practical. AI is already reading rent rolls, building underwriting models, updating CRM systems and generating marketing packages, removing the manual data entry that panelists agreed has long been the top complaint in the business. Slatt’s Jason Berry described how our company built an AI process that feeds rent rolls and operating statements directly into its sizing model, and recently connected its AI tools directly to Salesforce, letting employees ask plain-English questions instead of running reports. Removing the human hand from manual data entry improves data integrity, and that clean, connected data is starting to let originators spot financing opportunities, through entitlement and permitting records, well before a borrower ever reaches out. The real payoff shows up in how junior talent develops: analysts can spend less time formatting spreadsheets and more time on relationship-building and understanding fundamentals, moving faster from analyst to capital advisor.

10. Despite the rate move, lender liquidity is still deep, and that’s good news for borrowers.

Beyond the formal conference sessions, Slatt Capital held a series of separate, one-on-one conversations with more than 20 lenders throughout the event. The single most important takeaway from those conversations: although Treasury rates have risen significantly over the past 60-90 days, the lending market remains extremely liquid. Lenders have to lend, and that means they will compress spreads when needed if a deal is still profitable, and there’s still plenty of room for lenders to tighten spreads and get creative to make loans work. That’s a favorable dynamic for borrowers, debt advisors and most other active players in the market today.

Thank you to the California MBA, conference leadership and everyone who joined us in Las Vegas. We look forward to seeing you at next year’s conference!