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Commercial Real Estate Credit —
Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ
The state of disclosed CRE credit in this market · NJ, PA
The read
$709M of CMBS across 31 loans. Distress is rising in the filed record — 4.7% as of 2026-07. The heaviest maturity load lands in 2029 ($309M, 44% of the book). 16 on-the-ground distress events in the past year (823 jobs).
Overview
CMBS
Submarkets
Local Banks
Jobs & Demand
On The Ground
Loading map…
The CMBS properties our stress model flags here, plus recent store closures and layoffs. Stressed is a wider net than distressed — the distressed figure above counts only loans already in special servicing or 60+ days delinquent, while these dots also include performing loans facing maturity or coverage pressure. Property dots sit at the center of their ZIP code, not the building — they show where stress concentrates, not which asset. Closures and layoffs are pinned to address where we have it. Open any dot to the building and the loan behind it →
The record is turning in the Lehigh Valley, and 2029 holds the weight
Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton carries a modest CMBS book — $709 million across 31 loans — but the filed record is moving the wrong way. The distress rate stood at 4.7% as of July 2026, and the direction has been rising. That is not a forecast; it is what the servicer tape now shows. Median DSCR across the book sits at 1.55, and the eight banks with exposure here show no distress and no early-warning flags on the page, so the pressure that exists is concentrated on the securitized side.
The maturity wall is lopsided. The heaviest load lands in 2029, when $309 million — 44% of the entire book — comes due, with no distress currently marked against that vintage. A comparable slug matures in 2027. For desks underwriting this metro, the read is simple: the near-term refinancing test is real, and the single largest concentration is still three years out and clean on the tape.
Away from the loan files, the on-the-ground signal is live. Sixteen distress events landed in the past year — 11 layoff notices touching 823 jobs, plus five store closures — even as the metro's unemployment rate fell to 4.3% in August 2026, down 1.2 points year over year. The labor backdrop is firming; the filed CRE record is not following it.
Written 2026-10-21
CMBS Distressed UPB
Not reported
fewer than 3 loans are distressed here, too few for the share to be a rate — the book size and loan count above are unaffected
CMBS Maturing ≤ 24mo
$279M
Banks HQ’d Here (stressed)
0 / 8
Bank Early-Warning
0 flagged
Store Closures (1y)
5
Layoff Notices (1y)
11 / 823 jobs
0.25% of metro employment
CMBS Loans / UPB
31 / $709M
Unemployment · Aug 2026
4.3%
-1.2pp yr
How much CRE distress is there in Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ right now?
Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ shows a mixed distress picture across four independent feeds: 2 of the 4 signals are elevated, and the six pairwise comparisons split 1 agree-hot, 1 agree-quiet, and 4 disagreeing, with 0 pairs unadjudicated because a side is blind. On the elevated side, layoff notices (WARN) run at 11 notices, 0.19% of the metro's employment, ranking 52nd of 386 by count and 122nd by rate, while bank CRE at lenders over the noncurrent line sits at $526.3mm, 9.27% of the CRE lent into this metro, ranking 60th of 393 by count and 74th by rate. On the quiet side, store closures measure 5 closures, 1.5 per 100,000 jobs, ranking 83rd of 392 by count and 214th by rate, and securitized loans in special servicing total 1 row, 0.58% of the securitized balance, ranking 90th of 335 by count and 101st by rate. The disagreement pattern points to a large-employer event rather than a retail one (closures quiet vs. WARN hot), bank stress without a visible tenant cause (closures quiet vs. bank hot), employers cutting while the securitized book has not moved (WARN hot vs. tape quiet), and lenders stressed on a book the tape cannot see (bank hot vs. tape quiet). The one agree-hot pair (WARN + bank) and one agree-quiet pair (closures + tape) round out the read.
The figures behind this answer
| Signal | Level | Rate | Rank by count | Rank by rate | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| store closures store closures per 100,000 jobs |
5 closures | 1.5 per 100k jobs | 83 of 392 | 214 of 392 | quiet trailing 365 days to today
|
| layoff notices (WARN) workers on layoff notices as a share of the metro's employment |
11 notices | 0.19% | 52 of 386 | 122 of 386 | elevated trailing 365 days to today
|
| bank CRE at lenders over the noncurrent line share of the CRE lent into this metro that sits at a lender over the blended-noncurrent line |
$526.3mm | 9.27% | 60 of 393 | 74 of 393 | elevated
allocated 2026-03-31
|
| securitized loans in special servicing share of the securitized balance read here that is in special servicing |
1 loan records | 0.58% | 90 of 335 | 101 of 335 | quiet 2026-07-29
|
6 pairs compared
1 both elevated
1 both quiet
4 disagreeing
0 unreadable — a side is blind
2 of four legs elevated
one metro, four independent feeds, each on its own denominator
114 of 441 metros have at least one blind leg and 48 are blind on all four. Those 48 are the same metros the board's map cannot place and the metro resolver cannot name: one ZIP-to-CBSA crosswalk boundary, showing up three ways.
Elevation is computed on the COUNT, over a flat threshold, which is a size filter. New York is 2nd of 392 by store closures and 264th of the same 392 by closures per job — both true, and which one you lead with decides what the reader believes.
Where two legs disagree, that is usually a fact about WHICH mechanism is running, not an error in either feed and not a worse metro.
A leg with no denominator, or whose numerator cannot be measured, reads LOW and means nothing. Each leg publishes a measurement state (allocated, floor, measured, no denominator, no rate, not measurable) for that reason.
Store closures: divided by 332,778 jobs
— all metro jobs, QCEW annual average — a SIZE normaliser, not a matched population: the feed spans retail, food service and pharmacy and no single QCEW sector covers it. The MATCHED read sits beside it as this leg's second reading (trailing 365 days to today).
Layoff notices (WARN): divided by 450,068 employed
— employed persons, BLS LAUS, not seasonally adjusted (trailing 365 days to today).
Bank CRE at lenders over the noncurrent line: divided by $5,675.2 mm
— bank CRE allocated to this metro by branch deposits (2026-03-31).
Securitized loans in special servicing: divided by $685.0 mm
— current balance on the non-pari-passu rows of this tape — the trust's slice, not the whole loan, on both sides of the ratio (2026-07-29).
Written from the figures above · CBSA 10900 · stress_metro · last changed 28 Aug 2026
· Ask your own question →
Jobs & Demand — the labor market under the collateralWatch it change →
Every other zone on this page reads the credit — what the loan is doing.
This one reads the demand underneath it. Office jobs pay office rent;
office rent services the office loan. When the jobs go, the DSCR follows — but not for another year or two.
That lag is the whole point of looking here.
Unemployment · Aug 2026
4.3%
-1.2pp yr
Last 24 months
3.7%5.5%
Monthly metro unemployment (BLS LAUS) — the freshest labor signal there is,
about six weeks behind. Read the direction, not the level: a 4% metro that is rising and a 6% metro that is
falling are not telling you the same thing.
Jobs by CRE-relevant sector · 2024
Annual employment by sector (BLS QCEW, 2024; 332,778 jobs in the metro).
QCEW lags — it is the structural read, not the current one, and we pair it with the monthly unemployment above on purpose.
Office-using sums five supersectors; where BLS withholds any one of them for
disclosure, we show nothing rather than a number we know is too low — so a missing sector here means
“suppressed at the source,” not “zero.”
Sector Heat — CMBS distress rate by property type (metro vs national)See the loans behind the bar →
Fewer than 3 loans here are distressed, too few for a distress rate to mean anything — so there is no rate to test against this metro's property mix.
No CMBS sector data for this metro.
Maturity Wall — CMBS coming due by year, distress within eachSee what’s maturing →
$279M — 39% of the metro's balance — matures within two years; the red slice of each bar is already distressed.
Distress Trend — is this market turning?Track it quarter by quarter →
Realized distress is RISING — 4.7% now (2026-07), +4.7pp over the year.
Same definition as the cards above — distressed means in special servicing or 60+ days delinquent, dollar-weighted — on a different clock. The cards are today’s tape; this is the disclosed history panel, quarter by quarter, so you can read direction rather than level. Trusts file monthly, so a quarter is usually well covered within weeks of opening and the newest one shown is normally the current one; it is withheld only when its filed book falls below 60% of recent quarters.
Share of the metro’s CMBS in special servicing or 60+ days delinquent, by quarter — a firmer, backward-looking read. A loan under 1.0x DSCR that is still paying is not counted here.
Submarket Heat — where in the metro the distress sitsOpen the submarket →
The top three submarkets hold $654M of the metro's $709M; each bar's colored share is its distress rate.
Bank Door — what the local bank sector could absorbSee it on every loan’s exit read →
$279M of CMBS matures here within two years.
The 19 regional and local banks that gather deposits here could write roughly
$1.1B more CRE before the 300% supervisory line, so the maturing balance is
0.27× that room.
The median metro sits at 0.13×.
Regional Bank Room
$1.1B
After Committed Draws
$682M / −35%
Maturing ÷ Room
0.27×
Banks In Footprint
19 / 3 at the line
The room above is already part-sold. Construction lending is a promise drawn
down over two or three years, and the undrawn part is an obligation the bank cannot decline while the borrower performs
— every one of those dollars lands in the same CRE book the 300% line governs. These banks
have $451M of construction committed and not yet
advanced, of which $368M
comes out of the room above, leaving $682M,
with 7 banks
whose entire remaining room is spoken for.
A bank with no room contributes zero here, never a negative one — capacity does not net
across balance sheets — so $83M of what has
been promised is not deducted at all, because there is nothing left to deduct it from. On today’s
capital that is funding already contracted which would cross the line as it draws.
SR 06-26 draws a second line at 100% of capital for construction and land:
6 more cross it
once their own commitments fund.
Counted — 19 regional & local CRE lenders
| Bank | Deposit share | CRE / Capital* | Room contributed | Noncurrent CRE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fulton Bank, National Association PA | 7.5% | 184% total 283%
|
🔒 | 0.79% |
| Embassy Bank For The Lehigh Valley PA | 100.0% | 177% total 227%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| New Tripoli Bank PA | 100.0% | 142% total 288%
|
🔒 | 0.87% |
| First Northern Bank And Trust Company PA | 56.0% | 167% total 216%
|
🔒 | 1.85% |
| The Fidelity Deposit And Discount Bank PA | 22.4% | 188% total 315%
|
🔒 | 0.06% |
| Mauch Chunk Trust Company PA | 73.1% | 168% total 206%
|
🔒 | 0.07% |
| First Hope Bank, A National Banking Association NJ | 70.0% | 229% total 378%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Unity Bank NJ | 14.2% | 237% total 440%
|
🔒 | 1.07% |
| Jim Thorpe Neighborhood Bank PA | 100.0% | 183% total 188%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Firstrust Savings Bank PA | 3.6% | 245% total 306%
|
🔒 | 0.74% |
| Cnb Bank PA | 4.4% | 269% total 341%
|
🔒 | 0.61% |
| Quaint Oak Bank PA | 22.8% | 232% total 503%
|
🔒 | 1.10% |
| Penn Community Bank PA | 3.1% | 229% total 278%
|
🔒 | 0.82% |
| Peoples Security Bank And Trust Company PA | 10.7% | 290% total 389%
|
🔒 | 0.33% |
| First Keystone Community Bank PA | 1.6% | 147% total 317%
|
🔒 | 3.46% |
| Univest Bank And Trust Co. PA | 0.8% | 264% total 373%
|
🔒 | 0.22% |
| Qnb Bank PA | 15.1% | 332% total 436%
|
🔒 | 0.68% |
| Provident Bank NJ | 1.3% | 422% total 526%
|
🔒 | 0.59% |
| Mid Penn Bank PA | 0.4% | 328% total 438%
|
🔒 | 0.25% |
Not counted — 13 banks with deposits here
These hold deposits in this metro but are left out of the capacity above, because for them deposit location stops indicating where they lend — or they do not lend CRE at all. Real money that could refinance here is deliberately not counted.
no CRE book — CRE under 100% of capital — not a CRE lender
Wells Fargo Bank, National Association SD · Pnc Bank, National Association DE · Truist Bank NC · Bank Of America, National Association NC · Td Bank, National Association DE · The Neffs National Bank PA · Keybank National Association OH · Jpmorgan Chase Bank, National Association OH · Wilmington Trust, National Association DE
national — operates in more than 5 states, so deposits stop indicating where it lends
Community Bank, National Association NY · Manufacturers And Traders Trust Company NY · Valley National Bank NJ
booked here — books nearly all deposits to one branch — a charter address, not a footprint
* Two ratios, two perimeters.
The large figure is supervisory CRE over total risk-based capital —
construction, multifamily and non-owner-occupied nonfarm nonresidential. That is the book SR 06-26 draws its
300% line against, and it is what the red coloring and the room contributed are both measured on.
Total beneath it adds owner-occupied CRE — lending to a business on
its own premises — which the guidance deliberately leaves out. A bank can sit well above 300% on total CRE and
still be inside the line, with real room to lend; both are shown so the gap is visible rather than surprising.
How to read this. It is not whether any particular loan can refinance — a borrower also reaches
national banks, life companies, agencies and debt funds. It is how much of this metro’s maturing volume the local
bank sector could absorb if it were the only door.
Banks are placed by deposit share (FDIC Summary of Deposits, June 2026) — a proxy for
where they lend, not a measurement; call reports carry no collateral geography. Room = 3× total risk-based capital less CRE held
(SR 06-26, the capital base the rule names — not book equity), from Q2 2026 call reports, apportioned by that share.
Committed construction comes from FFIEC Schedule RC-L as filed at 2026-06-30 —
the undrawn half of loans already written, which the balance sheet above does not show.
Banks in more than 5 states, single-branch bookers and banks that do not lend CRE are excluded —
315 banks holding $263.8B of national capacity not counted here.
Local Lenders — banks headquartered here, worst CRE noncurrent firstUnlock each bank’s early-warning flag →
| Bank | Total CRE | CRE / Capital* | Noncurrent CRE | Early Warning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First Northern Bank And Trust Company | $308M | 167% total 216%
|
1.85% | 🔒 |
| New Tripoli Bank | $209M | 142% total 288%
|
0.87% | 🔒 |
| Mauch Chunk Trust Company | $122M | 168% total 206%
|
0.07% | 🔒 |
| Jim Thorpe Neighborhood Bank | $53M | 183% total 188%
|
0.00% | 🔒 |
| American Bank | $655M | 434% total 528%
|
0.00% | 🔒 |
| Embassy Bank For The Lehigh Valley | $406M | 177% total 227%
|
0.00% | 🔒 |
| First Hope Bank, A National Banking Association | $277M | 229% total 378%
|
0.00% | 🔒 |
| The Neffs National Bank | $87M | 89% total 110%
|
0.00% | 🔒 |
* Two ratios, two perimeters.
The large figure is supervisory CRE over total risk-based capital —
construction, multifamily and non-owner-occupied nonfarm nonresidential. That is the book SR 06-26 draws its
300% line against, and it is what the red coloring and the room contributed are both measured on.
Total beneath it adds owner-occupied CRE — lending to a business on
its own premises — which the guidance deliberately leaves out. A bank can sit well above 300% on total CRE and
still be inside the line, with real room to lend; both are shown so the gap is visible rather than surprising.
Banks are matched to their HQ metro (a proxy for footprint). Noncurrent CRE = CRE-balance-weighted blend of multifamily / nonresidential / construction noncurrent (distress already arrived). Early Warning is a validated leading signal — the bank’s 30-89 early-delinquency rank among all CRE lenders this quarter, which has predicted ~2.3× forward CRE distress. Per-bank flags are on a plan.
On The Ground — recent closures, layoffs & CRE bankruptciesTie these events to loans →
16 local distress events in the past year (823 jobs) — store closures, layoffs, and commercial real estate bankruptcies near this metro's collateral.
2026-11-16
LAYOFF
Scheduled · 52 jobs · Northampton
2026-10-16
LAYOFF
57 jobs · Lehigh
2026-10-14
BANKRUPTCY
Chapter 11
2026-10-06
BANKRUPTCY
Chapter 11
2026-10-06
BANKRUPTCY
Chapter 7
2026-10-01
BANKRUPTCY
Chapter 11
2026-09-30
LAYOFF
173 jobs · Lehigh
2026-09-24
BANKRUPTCY
Chapter 7
2026-09-24
BANKRUPTCY
Chapter 11
2026-09-24
BANKRUPTCY
Chapter 11
2026-09-24
BANKRUPTCY
Chapter 11
2026-08-17
LAYOFF
UPPER MACUNGIE Township
2026-08-05
LAYOFF
100 jobs · Allentown
2026-07-17
LAYOFF
176 jobs · Phillipsburg
2026-07-16
CLOSURE
Allentown
What has actually happened on the ground in Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ recently?
Over the trailing 365 days, the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ metro recorded 5 store closures, 11 WARN notices affecting 823 jobs, and 101 CRE-likely bankruptcies — though that last figure is a state proxy rather than a metro-native count, and the jobs figure is a floor since notices stating no headcount contribute zero.
The figures behind this answer
- Store closures
- 5
- WARN layoff notices
- 11
- Jobs on those notices
- 823
- CRE-related bankruptcies
- 101
- Window, in days
- 365
STATE PROXY — a court case counts in its filing district and an SEC 8-K in the filer's state, not where the property is, so this counts CRE-likely filings in the states this metro's collateral sits in. It is not a metro-native count. Each court case is counted once even when both PACER and CourtListener carry it. A court case's state is its filing district; an SEC 8-K or news item carries the filer's state. Coverage widened to both court feeds on 2026-09-16, so counts before and after that date are not comparable.
affected_employees is nullable — notices that state no headcount are counted but contribute 0 jobs, so this is a floor.
Closures are matched ZIP -> CBSA and only APPROVED rows count (a pending, machine-extracted row is not yet a closure). This mirrors the Metro Pulse page, not the convergence board — the board applies neither filter and counts higher. Layoffs take the same ZIP -> CBSA and review treatment, and a WARN notice counts if it affects >= 10 people or does not state a headcount (a NULL is not 'fewer than 10').
Written from the figures above · CBSA 10900 · geo_events · last changed 25 Oct 2026
· Ask your own question →
What this page can’t do
Everything above is a snapshot — one market, as it stands today, and
it’s yours to read. What a snapshot can’t tell you is when it moves: which loan slipped a DSCR band
this month, which bank’s early-warning rank crossed into the top quartile, which submarket started turning
while the headline number still looked fine. Distress doesn’t announce itself on the day you happen to check.
This page
One metro · one moment · you come looking.
Verstavo
Every metro · every month · it comes looking for you.
CMBS covers the securitized slice of CRE; bank, closure and layoff signals widen the view.
“No data” in a zone means we don’t observe it here, not that there is no stress.
Employment is BLS (QCEW annual, LAUS monthly) — public data, and the demand leg under all of it.
See the whole picture, not just the pulse.
Metro Pulse is the free, public read — one page for every market we cover. The platform goes loan‑by‑loan inside it: which buildings carry the stress, when their debt comes due, and your own portfolio benchmarked against the market you are standing in.