Near Zero CMBS Volume in January

Barring some big (and highly unlikely) surprise tomorrow, January will end with the smallest issuance of commercial mortgage-backed securities priced in the market's two-decade history. Dealers sold a record $234 billion of US CMBS in 2007, up 14% from 2006 even as volume began to dry up at midyear.

Edited to add:

Three CDOs -- two in Asia and one in the U.S. -- worth a combined $1.3 billion were sold in January 2008. As a comparison, in January 2007, 37 CDOs worth a total of $22 billion were issued.