Cincinnati carries $1.5 billion of CMBS across 63 loans, and the filed record has turned the wrong way: 16.5% of the book sat in special servicing or 60-plus days delinquent as of July 2026, a rate that has been rising. That is a notable number against a median DSCR of 1.65 across the market — the headline cushion looks fine, but the distress is concentrated rather than diffuse. On the bank side, 2 of 19 lenders tracked here are flagged distressed, with another 4 on early warning.
The maturity calendar tells you where the pressure gathers. The heaviest load lands in 2029, with $375 million coming due — 26% of the entire book in a single year — and smaller walls of roughly $0.2 billion each in 2028, 2030 and 2033. By sector, office and retail each anchor about $0.4 billion, with hospitality and multifamily at $0.2 billion apiece; retail here shows a 0.0% filed distress rate, inside the 2.6% national mark, while office nationally runs at 11.1%.
The on-the-ground record is active: 46 distress events over the past year, split between 12 store closures and 34 layoff notices accounting for 3,911 jobs. That sits against a local labor backdrop that reads tighter than the filed loan data — unemployment of 3.6% as of August 2026, down 0.7 points year over year. For desks underwriting this metro, the read is a strong-DSCR book with a visible concentration of trouble and a 2029 bunching that dominates the refinancing picture.
Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN currently shows 3 of 4 signals elevated — store closures, WARN layoff notices, and securitized loans in special servicing are all hot — while bank CRE at lenders over the noncurrent line reads quiet. Notably, the 3 pairs both elevated and 3 pairs disagreeing split the six pair readings evenly, with 0 pairs both quiet. The store closures leg is elevated by size, not by rate: it ranks 34th of 392 metros by count but 230th by rate per 100k jobs (1.34 closures per 100,000 jobs), a fork the data flags explicitly. WARN notices rank 34th of 386 by count and 114th by rate (0.2% of employment). The CMBS leg is the strongest per-unit signal: 16.49% of the securitized balance read here sits in special servicing, ranking 21st of 335 by count and 27th by rate. The bank leg, at 0.24% of allocated CRE over the noncurrent line (rank 187th of 393 by count, 319th by rate), remains quiet — but its allocation by branch deposits is a caveat since only 6.8% of dollars sit at single-metro banks. Disagreements here reflect mechanism, not error: closures-hot with bank-quiet reads as "tenants are leaving and no lender balance sheet shows it yet," and WARN-hot with bank-quiet reads as "employment is going before any lender books it." The CMBS-bank split — tape hot, bank cold — points to national capital stress no local lender is carrying. Three pair agreements (closures-WARN, closures-CMBS, WARN-CMBS) all read hot, reinforcing that the stress is real across property-level and employment feeds, even as the lender-side picture lags.
| Signal | Level | Rate | Rank by count | Rank by rate | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| store closures store closures per 100,000 jobs |
13 closures | 1.34 per 100k jobs | 34 of 392 | 230 of 392 | elevated trailing 365 days to today
|
| layoff notices (WARN) workers on layoff notices as a share of the metro's employment |
20 notices | 0.2% | 34 of 386 | 114 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 |
$77.0mm | 0.24% | 187 of 393 | 319 of 393 | quiet
allocated 2026-03-31
|
| securitized loans in special servicing share of the securitized balance read here that is in special servicing |
9 loan records | 16.49% | 21 of 335 | 27 of 335 | elevated 2026-07-29
|
In Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN, the elevated distress signals are concentrated in CMBS special servicing, ground-level closures, and WARN notices. Specifically, the CMBS special servicing UPB is $240.0mm, representing a 16.5% share of metro UPB, with 9 loans in special servicing. Additionally, there are 13 store closures and 20 WARN notices over the past year. However, bank-side distress is not readable: the share of bank CRE at the 90th percentile is 8.6%, total bank CRE is $32.31bn (with a 6.8% allocation), and distressed lender CRE is $77.0mm (distressed bank assets: 0.3). The convergence score is 3, signaling a confirmed phase with leading and realized credit signals firing together.
| Bank | Deposit share | CRE / Capital* | Room contributed | Noncurrent CRE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First Financial Bank OH | 38.5% | 169% total 215%
|
🔒 | 0.91% |
| Union Savings Bank OH | 45.3% | 128% total 128%
|
🔒 | 0.21% |
| The North Side Bank And Trust Company OH | 100.0% | 156% total 259%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Republic Bank & Trust Company KY | 7.6% | 125% total 186%
|
🔒 | 0.25% |
| The Harrison Building And Loan Association OH | 100.0% | 107% total 137%
|
🔒 | 0.07% |
| Valley Central Bank OH | 100.0% | 122% total 184%
|
🔒 | 3.47% |
| First Commonwealth Bank PA | 4.9% | 205% total 260%
|
🔒 | 0.71% |
| Stock Yards Bank & Trust Company KY | 10.5% | 248% total 359%
|
🔒 | 0.20% |
| The Park National Bank OH | 3.8% | 197% total 270%
|
🔒 | 0.81% |
| 1st National Bank OH | 99.1% | 133% total 203%
|
🔒 | 0.17% |
| The Friendship State Bank IN | 39.9% | 113% total 171%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Civista Bank OH | 16.0% | 261% total 329%
|
🔒 | 0.63% |
| First State Bank OH | 20.7% | 183% total 201%
|
🔒 | 0.18% |
| Fcn Bank, National Association IN | 70.8% | 247% total 324%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| The Cincinnatus Savings & Loan Co. OH | 100.0% | 201% total 238%
|
🔒 | 0.16% |
| Central Bank & Trust Co. KY | 12.0% | 261% total 333%
|
🔒 | 0.01% |
| German American Bank IN | 2.9% | 222% total 306%
|
🔒 | 0.21% |
| Forcht Bank, National Association KY | 28.7% | 249% total 329%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| The Merchants National Bank OH | 10.3% | 149% total 240%
|
🔒 | 0.59% |
| Community Savings Bank OH | 68.9% | 136% total 152%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Heritage Bank, Inc. KY | 100.0% | 295% total 403%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| First National Bank Of Kentucky KY | 24.0% | 186% total 329%
|
🔒 | 0.57% |
| Cfbank, National Association OH | 9.0% | 279% total 362%
|
🔒 | 0.53% |
| Community Trust Bank, Inc. KY | 0.2% | 165% total 206%
|
🔒 | 0.39% |
| Farmers & Merchants Bank OH | 8.1% | 240% total 432%
|
🔒 | 1.56% |
| The Farmers & Merchants State Bank OH | 0.7% | 231% total 374%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Peoples Exchange Bank KY | 1.8% | 246% total 359%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Riverhills Bank OH | 100.0% | 493% total 567%
|
🔒 | 0.15% |
| Lcnb National Bank OH | 67.3% | 386% total 492%
|
🔒 | 0.23% |
| The First National Bank Of Williamson WV | 0.0% | 108% total 165%
|
🔒 | 1.01% |
| Bank | Total CRE | CRE / Capital* | Noncurrent CRE | Early Warning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Valley Central Bank | $70M | 122% total 184%
|
3.47% | 🔒 |
| Fifth Third Bank, National Association | $33.6B | 68% total 106%
|
0.77% | 🔒 |
| 1st National Bank | $54M | 133% total 203%
|
0.17% | 🔒 |
| The North Side Bank And Trust Company | $367M | 156% total 259%
|
0.00% | 🔒 |
| U.s. Bank National Association | $50.7B | 57% total 70%
|
1.12% | 🔒 |
| First Financial Bank | $5.0B | 169% total 215%
|
0.91% | 🔒 |
| Spring Valley Bank | $64M | 102% total 165%
|
0.24% | 🔒 |
| Lcnb National Bank | $1.1B | 386% total 492%
|
0.23% | 🔒 |
Cincinnati's banks appear to have ample capacity to refinance the metro's visible maturing CRE: 30 banks qualify for the room calculation, and with $297.9mm maturing against $1.71bn of room after committed draws, the wall-to-room ratio is 0.17 — below the median of 0.24, ranking it 160 of 275 from the most strained, a slack reading. Two caveats temper this: the wall covers $1.46bn of CMBS maturing within 24 months rather than the metro's whole maturity load, so the ratio is an upper bound on local-bank absorption, and 4 banks are excluded from the room.
Over the trailing 365-day window in Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN, the vetted readings show 34 WARN notices, 12 store closures, and 2 CRE-likely bankruptcies, with jobs affected at 3,911 — though that jobs figure is a floor, since notices stating no headcount are counted but contribute zero. Note that the bankruptcy count is a state proxy, counting filings in the states where the metro's collateral sits rather than a metro-native count, and the closure and layoff figures are ZIP-matched to the CBSA with only approved rows counted.