Tom Fink, SVP at Trepp, tells GlobeSt.com that "the pricing is tightening up because people see that there's an opportunity for doing a profitable trade by buying the bonds and then securing financing through the Federal Reserve's TALF loan facility. That should provide a fairly stable underpinning for the five-year spread at least through the end of the year, which is how long the program is currently scheduled to last. If at the end of that, people start to see a good tone in the market and the performance of commercial real estate stops deteriorating, it could become permanent."

Still to come are deals on new CMBS through TALF, but Fink says "the market's fully expecting that there will be new issue on the TALF program between now and the end of the year. You have a number of large institutions that have talked to the Fed and they expect to pursue deals with the Fed. There's plenty of folks down in Washington who are suggesting that it be continued a lot longer."

Fink says he doesn't expect the prospect of further actions by ratings agencies to discourage would-be buyers of CMBS paper. "The ratings agencies have taken their actions," he says. "Now it's a matter of the agencies moving through whatever watch lists they've put out. So regarding the uncertainty caused by people asking 'what are the rating agencies going to do?' well, now they've already done it, and it's priced into the market at this point."