CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA-SNL Financial is tracking a growing number of investment opportunities, feeding what the locally based firm refers to as a “flurry” of capital raising. As we reported last week, the expected fall unwinding of quantitative easing will impact commercial real estate in a way that is other than good. But in the meantime, the public markets are raising common and preferred equity to take advantage of those deals.

“A growing number of investment opportunities spurred commercial mortgage REITs' capital raising, JMP Securities analyst Steve DeLaney tells SNL. “Those opportunities have come as volatility has rocked the agency MBS market amid talk by the Fed that it plans to wind down its purchases of agency MBS. Agency mortgage REIT stocks have been hit as a result, making equity issuance unattractive for many names.”

DeLaney is reporting a “major” uptick in deal flow for mortgage REITs. "There's a lot more buying and selling of real estate, a lot more refinancing," he's quoted as saying. "Deals that couldn't get executed in the marketplace now can, and we benefit from that transaction activity."

Commercial mortgage paper is coming to maturity, he says, so refis are on the rise as well. “As the economy picks up and commercial real estate values rise,” he notes, “commercial mortgage REITs should be able to complete even more transactions. The attractive thing is the loans are mostly floating-rate loans tied to LIBOR, so they're able basically to make loans that could have three- to five-year terms where they're not taking on interest-rate risk.”

So who were the leaders in common, preferred and IPO offerings year to date? Credit Suisse led the common equity pack at $1.72 billion, followed by Bank of America Merrill Lynch's $1.32 billion.

In both preferred and IP offerings, UBS Investment Bank led the way with $442.2 million and $106.3 million, respectively. Second in the preferred race was Morgan Stanley at $295.1 million. Credit Suisse came in second for IPOs at $77.4 million.