The two-day Trepp Connect (in NYC) event gets underway Wednesday, May 6 at Rockefeller Center and runs through Thursday, May 7. During that time, industry professionals will gather insights on topics ranging from the current economic outlook to deal flow and the deployment of artificial intelligence. Here, Lonnie Hendry, chief product officer, co-host of The TreppWire Podcast, sets the stage.
Trepp has long been known as a trusted source for commercial real estate data and analytics. How has your platform evolved to help clients make smarter decisions in today’s more complex market?
Trepp has evolved from being primarily a data provider into an AI-powered insights and analytics platform designed to help users make better decisions faster. Trepp still provides the most trusted, transparent CRE, CMBS, and CLO data in the market. We have just modernized how and where our users can access Trepp’s data and market intelligence.
Today’s market requires speed, context, and comparability across asset classes, capital stacks, and geographies. We have invested heavily in improving data timeliness, expanding coverage beyond CMBS, and layering analytics that help clients move from “what happened” to “what it means.” Trepp has built a suite of user-friendly and intuitive products that power over 1,000 firms across the ecosystem. Trepp’s value proposition remains intact, but we have embraced being nimble and aligning our product suite to the ever-changing technological landscape.
Q: With so much uncertainty around rates, refinancing, and valuations, what are the biggest trends you’re watching in the CRE market right now?
A: Three things stand out:
- First is bifurcation. We are seeing meaningful divergence by asset quality, location, and sponsorship. Class-A assets with durable cash flow and strong operators are behaving very differently from everything else. This bifurcation extends beyond the office sector and into Lodging, Retail, Multifamily, and Industrial.
- Second is refinancing risk. Not because every loan is broken, but because the math has changed. Even healthy assets are struggling to refinance at prior leverage levels, and that’s forcing real decisions. We’ve seen an increasing number of loans not pay off at maturity and remain in an “unresolved” status. This creates risk for lenders and borrowers, but also opportunity for distressed buyers and experienced operators.
- Third is the lag between price discovery and transaction activity. Valuations have largely adjusted on paper, but capital markets’ confidence takes longer to reset. That gap is still suppressing volume, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Trepp thinks the velocity and volume of transactions will increase throughout 2026 and beyond.
Q: Distress has been a major topic across the industry. Where are you seeing the most pressure today, and where do you see opportunity emerging?
A: Pressure is most visible where capital structures no longer align with fundamentals. This is particularly visible in older office, select hospitality, and assets that were aggressively underwritten late in the previous cycle. In many cases, the issue isn’t cash flow collapse, it’s refinancing feasibility.
Opportunity emerges where that pressure creates basis resets. Investors and lenders who can underwrite to realistic rents, conservative leverage, and patient timelines are finding attractive entry points, especially outside traditional gateway markets and in sectors with clear demand drivers. The adage of real estate being a local endeavor is playing out before our eyes. Local market knowledge and operating experience allow certain participants to move faster and capitalize on the reset in basis.
Q: Trepp serves lenders, investors, brokers, and owners. How do different parts of the market use Trepp data differently in this environment?
- Lenders are using Trepp to prioritize risk by identifying which exposures require attention and which simply require time. They also get to see how other lenders are addressing their troubled loans and which strategies are working well and where they may need to pivot. Being able to quantify and assess risk across the market and their portfolio is paramount.
- Investors are using it to triangulate reality: underwriting downside scenarios, stress‑testing assumptions, and validating where pricing has truly reset. Trepp’s data and insights act as an incredible source of truth for investors when the market and property-level outcomes become cloudy.
- Brokers rely on Trepp to ground conversations with clients in facts rather than anecdotes. In times of uncertainty, brokers with better, more timely data win more deals. Trepp has been a driving force behind several brokerage firms’ success.
- Owners use Trepp to benchmark performance, understand how their assets and capital stacks compare to peers, and prepare for lender conversations that are far more data‑driven than they were five years ago. Owners must know how their property stacks up to the market, helping them grow cash flow. They are also working with lenders that are being much more cautious in today’s lending environment, and they expect owners to know everything about their properties.
AI and technology are changing every industry. How is Trepp thinking about innovation and the future of market intelligence?
- We think about AI very practically. The goal isn’t to replace judgment; it is to scale insight, action, and productive results.
- AI helps us process massive amounts of structured and unstructured information, surface patterns faster, and allow clients to ask better questions of the data in a natural language form instead of a typical drop-down or check box format. However, Trepp knows that transparency matters. Our focus is on explainable outputs that users can trust and validate, not black‑box answers.
- The future of market intelligence is less about having more data and more about reducing friction between data and decisions. Simply stated, AI should make users more informed and more productive. That is the strategy of how Trepp is incorporating AI across the product suite.
If someone attends Trepp Connect on May 6 & 7, what kinds of conversations or takeaways do you think will be most valuable this year?
A: The conversations at Trepp Connect are designed to be less theoretical and much more operationally focused than many other events. Attendees will spend time on how deals are getting done (or not) across lending, investing, and asset management.
Expect honest discussions about what’s working, where assumptions are breaking, and how different players are adjusting strategies in real time. The most valuable takeaway is likely clarity, cutting through headlines and understanding where the market truly stands, beyond the headlines.
Q: Looking ahead through the rest of 2026, what would you say to market participants trying to position themselves for the next cycle?
A: Be disciplined, be patient and stay grounded in data. (This should be applied during every part of the market cycle, but emotions sometimes get the better of us.)
This part of the cycle rewards realism and strong in-place cash flow. The market is offering signals; those signals are just uneven. Those who understand where fundamentals are durable, where capital structures can reset, and where operators truly matter will be best positioned when momentum returns. Experience matters during this part of the cycle. Whether it be in the form of loan workouts, effective property management and leasing, or underwriting acquisitions during periods of uncertainty, success will be found by those who have been here before and have the experience and fortitude to act.
The recovery won’t be uniform, and that’s precisely where opportunity will live.
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