Miami-The CREFC January Conference delved into the issue of lending Tuesday, at a panel discussion moderated by Kimco SVP Scott Onufrey. As 2012 kicks off, most panelists agreed that, despite uncertainty and existing headwinds, that lending will continue at a decent pace for the year. However, the caution that shut down the second half of 2011 will continue, slightly abated.

David Twardock, president of Prudential Mortgage Capital Co., said that it was lending today and “reasonably optimistic” about the market, but that global events do cast a pall. “As we think about how we’re going to approach the market we have to be a little more conservative because we just don’t know what’s going to happen in terms of the global economy,” he said.

Jon Martin, managing director at Wells Fargo Bank, pointed out that it is “looking forward” and that, in hindsight, this may turn out to have been a great time to have originated a loan. “We actually view this as a good entry point to be making commercial mortgages,” Martin told those assembled. “We think a couple of years down the road this vintage we’re involved with now will be viewed as good real estate loans.”

President of Starwood Capital Trust Boyd Fellows, however, pointed out that his group’s view was that there is not much hope that the economy is going to do a lot better—but that there seems to be a measure of stability in the air. Starwood, which announced last week that it had completed $570 million in investments in the fourth quarter of 2011 over four US transactions, is heavily invested in Europe as well.

“The biggest wildcard is Europe,” Fellows said. “A little less than 20% of our assets are in Europe.” If assets are liquidated in Europe, he continued, “that could have a tremendous effect on our space.”

On the CMBS side, most remained cautious. Fellows, for his part, said that in terms of the CMBS industry getting rolling again “there are two fundamental things that seem to be broken that need to be fixed.” These were hedging and being able to predict where the ratings agencies are going to come down on a loan. “Two or three years ago if you made a loan, you knew exactly where Moody’s, S&P and Fitch were going to come out.”

Dennis Schuh, managing director at JP Morgan, said that last year the CMBS industry effectively lost an entire quarter because of the volatility seen in the third quarter. Looking forward, however, Martin predicted good activity for CMBS in the second half of the year. He predicted that the yearly total would be in the $25 billion range.

The volume of equity available remains a positive, though. “I think there is a lot of equity out there,” said Prudential Mortgage Capital Co.’s Twardock, pointing to REITs and the Core Plus funds as examples.