On the face of it, a loan sale is a loan sale. It's a means of getting a troubled asset off the books in a shorter time frame than foreclosure would entail, although oft en with smaller proceeds than a foreclosure auction could provide. Yet for banks and special servicers, the considerations differ. One group has to balance the pluses and minuses of conducting the sales with the quarterly ups and downs of its other operations, while the other has a clear-cut responsibility to the CMBS trust. Neither has a clear-cut edge in getting the most benefit from selling notes.

One of the "blatant advantages" the special servicers have over banks is ready access to information pertaining to a particular loan, says Bliss Morris, founder and CEO of First Financial Network, based in Oklahoma City. Because the loans in special servicing have generally been securitized, the documents are bundled together, rather than potentially scattered across several bank branches.

"Another difference is that while a bank is trying to manage their losses against their capital ratios, the special servicers know they're going to take a loss in many instances," says Morris. "Their responsibility to the trust is not the same as managing the capital structure like a bank, or managing loan loss reserves. Their challenge is making sure that for each of the assets they resolve, they have obtained the fair market value for the trust. Both of those entities have some important considerations and performance expectations that they have to manage, but it's clearly different."