It’s late summer 2026, and one major American holding company is sitting on nearly $4 billion in cash and short-term treasuries, even as the S&P 500 trades new all-time highs. Warren Buffett has spent years selling more than he bought, and the discipline is paying off. According to CNBC, this holding company became a net buyer of stocks in Q2 2026, purchasing nearly $20 billion more in equities than it sold.
The lesson for commercial real estate has little to do with stock picking and more with what the cash enabled this company to do: give it the ability to choose when to act. In an economic downturn, the biggest risk to an owner? Losing their ability to decide when, how, and on what terms to transact — not the potential that the property value will fall.
A value decline is survivable. Losing the ability to wait is not.
A valuation decline can remain unrealized if:
- A property’s debt is manageable
- Reserves are sufficient
- Tenants are still paying rent
- The ownership group can hold
The Federal Reserve’s November 2025 Financial Stability report found commercial real estate prices showing signs of stabilization after steep declines between mid-2022 and early 2024, but flagged a significant risk. Forced sales, if they happen, would put renewed downward pressure on prices — and the deciding factor? Whether borrowers who need to refinance can. The challenge is making finances work if their building has a loan balance they can’t refinance under current underwriting.
Illiquidity narrows your options considerably. An owner may discover they’re facing thin buyer pools, wide bid-ask spreads, reduced lender appetite, declining NOI, and a loan maturity at once. That scenario leaves very few options, none of which is very appealing:
- Refinance at worse terms
- Bring in fresh equity
- Sell at a discount
- Negotiate a workout
- Default
The maturity wall is the mechanism, not the cause
A property doesn’t have to be fundamentally troubled for a maturing loan to force a new valuation at exactly the wrong point in the cycle. The Mortgage Bankers Association’s 2025 survey of loan maturity volumes puts $875 billion — 17% of the $5 trillion in outstanding commercial and multifamily mortgages scheduled to mature in 2026 — with another $652 billion coming due in 2027.
That number is a 9% decline from the $957 billion that matured in 2025, which MBA’s chief economist interpreted as a sign that the market is moving past the peak of the maturity wave. While the wall is real, it’s cresting now, and not building toward a future peak.
Maturities vary by property type. We’ll see about 30% of hotel and motel, 23% of industrial and 17% of office loan balances come due in 2026. While a maturing loan doesn’t automatically cause financial challenges, the owner must, nonetheless, show access to liquidity on the lender’s (not market’s) timeline.
Why cash offers an advantage
Cash buyers get a discount when they capitalize on a distressed deal. They have advantages over financed buyers:
- Cleaner offers
- Fewer financing contingencies
- Faster closes
They can use loan assumptions, discounted debt purchases, rescue equity, or direct asset acquisitions to structure around uncertainty. But if the debt maturity deadline is quickly approaching and there’s no clear refinancing path, the sellers face a trade-off — valuing certainty over price.
Enter example A of how Buffett’s cash discipline translates to CRE. The holding company’s billions drew about $12 billion in annualized interest at yields near 3.7% on the Treasury bills comprising most of the pile. Holding dry powder (the cash or liquid capital held in reserve, uninvested and ready to deploy as soon as an opportunity presents itself) isn’t dead capital. It earns interest while it waits. And when an illiquid seller must transact, having cash on hand empowers the buyer.
This example doesn’t mean that cash is risk-free. Having capital on hand doesn’t make an acquisition an automatic smart (or even correct) move. In addition to a reasonable timeline to stabilize or exit the deal, a buyer still has to consider — and underwrite:
- Tenant rollover
- Capex
- Insurance
- Taxes
- Leasing costs
- Future debt terms
The cash-buyers-will-scoop-up-distressed-assets narrative has been running ahead of the data. The Counselors of Real Estate’s 2026 outlook notes that opportunistic buyers have been waiting for distressed CRE they can acquire at a discount, but that it’s “been slow to materialize.” Transaction activity is likely to stay flat through 2027 before pricing gaps narrow, and the market grows more competitive.
Capital availability currently looks more selective than opportunistic: well-capitalized buyers have disproportionate leverage when a seller’s debt maturity or liquidity gap forces a decision. It’s not a general rule across the market.
The takeaway for CRE investors
The best downturn acquisition strategy starts before a downturn arrives. CRE investors should consider:
- Preserving their dry powder rather than deploying it all at a cycle’s apex.
- Staggering debt maturities to prevent one refinancing decision from putting the whole portfolio at risk.
- Underwriting refinancing gains against adverse, not best-case, assumptions.
Liquidity is a portfolio-level position — not an afterthought to underwrite if a deal looks shaky. It determines whether an owner can choose the timing of their next move or whether the lender’s calendar makes that decision for them.
Are you a commercial real estate investor or seeking a specific property to meet your company’s needs? We invite you to talk to the professionals at CREA United, an organization of CRE professionals from over 65 firms representing all disciplines within the CRE industry, from brokers to subcontractors, financial services to security systems, interior designers to architects, movers to IT, and more.
