US lawmakers ask the Fed to help businesses struggling with mortgage payments - report

WSJ reports on the matter

The report says that more than 100 members of Congress are calling for the Trump administration and the Fed to help businesses by pausing debt payments in a key real estate financing market, referring to commercial mortgage backed securities (CMBS).

The CMBS market roughly amounts to $550 billion with many hotels, shopping malls and office buildings said to be unable to negotiate debt reprieves during the pandemic.

The bipartisan group of representatives are expected to send a letter to US Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin and Fed chair Jerome Powell, asking them to set up a facility to support these borrowers through the current period. The letter is reported as saying:

Without a long-term relief plan in the face of an elongated crisis, CMBS borrowers could face a historic wave of foreclosures starting this fall, impacting local communities and destroying jobs for Americans across the country.

More on that here (may be gated).