At a time when commercial real estate transactions have been down and banks in a dither over the impact rising interest rates are having on the value of their long-term assets, it might seem counterintuitive that CRE lending by them has been rising through April.

The Federal Reserve's H.8 report, which shows assets and liabilities of U.S. commercial banks, is most clear. For commercial banks, CRE loans started the week ending April 5 at $2,883.9 billion. That was down from $2,897.2 billion at the end of March, which in turn had dropped from $2,898.1 billion on February's close.

But things turned with the week ending April 12, with $2,885.6 billion, an increase of $1.7 billion. The following week, ending April 19, the category was up to $2,890.6, an addition of another $5 billion. And then in the week ending April 26, the jump was $14 billion to $2,904.6 billion. The total percentage increase over the month was 0.72%, or $20.7 billion.