About $14.4 billion of the roughly $58.5 billion of performing CMBS loans that were securitized through private-label deals are likely to face substantial challenges getting refinanced, according to Morningstar. About $28 billion of the maturing universe will be easily refinanced, but $5.25 billion of those have high leverage levels.

A total of 1,525 CMBS loans with a balance of $13.8 billion were liquidated last year, according to Morningstar. And LNR Partners was responsible for more than 40 percent of the liquidations. The $13.8 billion of volume compares to $7.8 billion in 2010 and reflects the steady volume of loans handled by special servicers.

Colonial Properties Trust is planning to increase the size of its apartment portfolio by making $100 million to $150 million of acquisitions this year. At the same time, it will sell non-apartment and non-core assets. Its goal is to generate 90 percent of overall net operating income from apartment properties.

Brookdale Group Fund VI, which raised $410 million of equity commitments in 2010, recently completed three investments. It still has some $500 million of investment capacity, after taking leverage into account. And it expects to fully invest that within the next two years.

The sale of properties valued at more than $2.5 million apiece jumped last year by 57 percent to $220 billion, according to Real Capital Analytics. Volumes would have been substantially greater had the market not slowed down in the second half of the year. Manhattan properties accounted for 12.4 percent of the year's volume.

Virtus Real Estate Capital has jockeyed to expand its buying muscle by launching a vehicle that's looking to raise up to $500 million. It would invest in self-storage, student-housing, medical-office and seniors-housing properties.

The year's first CMBS conduit deal priced yesterday at spreads that were considerably tighter than levels reached by a deal that priced five weeks earlier. The transaction, GS Mortgage Securities Trust, 2012-GC6, saw its 10-year AAA bonds price at a spread of 120 basis points more than swaps.

The parent of New York Community Bank, among the more active bank lenders to commercial property owners, increased the size of its portfolio of apartment and commercial mortgages by $2 billion last year, to $24.3 billion. It expects to continue to be an active lender.

Cohen & Associates, a Los Angeles investment firm, is gearing up to raise $100 million of equity from institutions and high net-worth investors for its first fund as an effort to expand its portfolio five-fold in the coming years. The fund would pursue opportunistic investments in apartment and mixed-use properties in certain areas.