Knoxville, TN shows a mixed stress picture. Two of four signals read elevated: store closures at 7 closures (1.93 per 100k jobs, ranked 58th of 392 by count, 180th by rate) and bank CRE at lenders over the noncurrent line at $551.0mm (4.19% of CRE lent, ranked 57th of 393 by count, 168th by rate). The other two, layoff notices at 4 notices (0.09% of employment) and securitized loans in special servicing at 0 rows (0.0%), are quiet. Among the six possible pairings, four disagree—notably, closures hot with WARN quiet points to small-operator failures below the filing floor, while bank stress with no employment event suggests lender distress on a book the tape can't see. CMBS coverage is limited to $238.0mm of securitized balance, and the bank allocation caveat notes only 17.7% of dollars sit at single-metro lenders, so broader CRE stress is likely real but concentrated in unsecuritized retail and bank-held assets.
| Signal | Level | Rate | Rank by count | Rank by rate | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| store closures store closures per 100,000 jobs |
7 closures | 1.93 per 100k jobs | 58 of 392 | 180 of 392 | elevated trailing 365 days to today
|
| layoff notices (WARN) workers on layoff notices as a share of the metro's employment |
4 notices | 0.09% | 113 of 386 | 174 of 386 | quiet 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 |
$551.0mm | 4.19% | 57 of 393 | 168 of 393 | elevated
allocated 2026-03-31
|
| securitized loans in special servicing share of the securitized balance read here that is in special servicing |
0 loan records | 0% | 220 of 335 | 220 of 335 | quiet 2026-07-29
|
In Knoxville, TN, the elevated distress signals are bank_distressed_cre and closures, reflected in a distressed-lender CRE figure of $551.0mm and 7 store closures over the past year. The bank-CRE-at-risk reading is elevated at 51.2% (90th percentile), alongside a bank CRE allocation of 17.7% of $13.14bn. The CMBS special-servicing reading is unavailable as a distress signal—it is effectively nil at $0.0mm (0.0% of metro UPB), and the distressed-bank asset reading is 2.7 (one bank). The overall phase is "early," with materiality "modest," meaning the ground is wobbling via real-economy closures but CRE-credit distress has not yet materialized as a credit event.
| Bank | Deposit share | CRE / Capital* | Room contributed | Noncurrent CRE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southeast Bank TN | 49.4% | 231% total 294%
|
🔒 | 0.08% |
| Cbbc Bank TN | 100.0% | 204% total 262%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Community Trust Bank, Inc. KY | 3.9% | 165% total 206%
|
🔒 | 0.39% |
| Tnbank TN | 100.0% | 201% total 331%
|
🔒 | 0.93% |
| Firstbank TN | 5.3% | 269% total 386%
|
🔒 | 0.97% |
| First Century Bank TN | 40.4% | 237% total 371%
|
🔒 | 0.05% |
| One Bank Of Tennessee TN | 10.7% | 181% total 345%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Ubank TN | 100.0% | 223% total 328%
|
🔒 | 1.14% |
| United Cumberland Bank KY | 11.8% | 128% total 206%
|
🔒 | 0.93% |
| Hearthside Bank Corporation KY | 10.4% | 148% total 237%
|
🔒 | 0.20% |
| Smartbank TN | 14.1% | 290% total 461%
|
🔒 | 0.10% |
| The First National Bank Of Oneida TN | 8.5% | 149% total 214%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Peoples Bank Of The South TN | 100.0% | 284% total 335%
|
🔒 | 0.52% |
| Peoples Bank Of East Tennessee TN | 10.5% | 206% total 274%
|
🔒 | 0.20% |
| First Us Bank AL | 8.0% | 249% total 296%
|
🔒 | 0.09% |
| First Financial Bank, National Association IN | 1.5% | 264% total 283%
|
🔒 | 0.81% |
| Southern Bank Of Tennessee TN | 18.0% | 274% total 380%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| First Peoples Bank Of Tennessee TN | 23.8% | 295% total 360%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Citizens Bank TN | 22.4% | 305% total 446%
|
🔒 | 1.03% |
| Commercial Bank TN | 12.3% | 307% total 480%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Builtwell Bank TN | 8.9% | 304% total 448%
|
🔒 | 0.34% |
| Tennessee State Bank TN | 8.2% | 347% total 398%
|
🔒 | 0.03% |
| Bank Of Tennessee TN | 7.4% | 375% total 484%
|
🔒 | 0.28% |
| Citizens National Bank TN | 2.4% | 331% total 422%
|
🔒 | 0.00% |
| Bank | Total CRE | CRE / Capital* | Noncurrent CRE | Early Warning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home Federal Bank Of Tennessee | $584M | 95% total 125%
|
8.84% | 🔒 |
| Peoples Bank Of The South | $102M | 284% total 335%
|
0.52% | 🔒 |
| Ubank | $79M | 223% total 328%
|
1.14% | 🔒 |
| Tnbank | $118M | 201% total 331%
|
0.93% | 🔒 |
| Southeast Bank | $953M | 231% total 294%
|
0.08% | 🔒 |
| Cbbc Bank | $230M | 204% total 262%
|
0.00% | 🔒 |
Yes. Knoxville's CMBS wall is small relative to local bank capacity: maturing_bal of $15.9mm across 3 loans against $140.4mm of room after committed draws, a wall_to_room of 0.11 — below the median of 0.24, ranking it 194 of 275 from the most strained — with 24 banks qualifying (against 7 excluded here) and a distressed share of 0.0%, so the refinancing load should be readily absorbable.
Over the trailing 365-day window, Knoxville, TN has seen 5 WARN notices and 4 store closures on the ground, with 537 jobs affected — a figure that is a floor, since notices stating no headcount are counted but contribute 0 jobs. CRE bankruptcies in the states this metro's collateral sits in stand at 0, though that is a state-level proxy rather than a metro-native count.