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DebtX Announces Sale of Two Portfolios and Rise in CRE Loan Prices

""DebtX"":http://www.debtx.com/, a Boston-based loan sale advisor for commercial, consumer, and specialty finance debt, recently announced that it plans to sell two loan portfolios, totaling more than $410 million.

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The larger of the two portfolios will be sold through KDX Ventures, a joint venture between DebtX and ""KEMA Advisors"":http://www.kemaadvisors.com/, a boutique investment banking firm headquartered in Hillsborough, North Carolina.

On March 24, 2010, KDX Ventures will sell $306 million in nonperforming loans for ""HUD."":http://portal.hud.gov/portal/page/portal/HUD The portfolio consists of 25 multifamily commercial real estate loans and one healthcare loan, ranging in size from $1.6 million to $44.3 million. The collateral is located in 14 states across the country, and investors may bid on any individual loan or on pre-determined pools of loans.

""KDX Ventures anticipates robust interest in this HUD portfolio due to pent-up demand for commercial assets in general and multifamily product in particular,"" said DebtX CEO Kingsley Greenland. ""HUD has an excellent reputation in the marketplace, and there is typically active bidding for product offered by the agency.""

DebtX also announced the sale of $105.5 million in primarily non-performing loans for a regional bank in the

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western United States. The portfolio is comprised of 71 loans and 33 relationships, and the collateral includes commercial and residential properties located primarily in California, Washington, Oregon, and Arizona. The three largest loans in the pool have a combined principal value of $47.6 million, and the entire portfolio will be up for bid March 22, 2010,

""Over the past six months, the number of bids per offering at DebtX has increased an average of 25 percent due to heightened demand for performing and non-performing loans,"" Greenland said. ""A growing number of equity buyers are seeking to re-enter the commercial real estate market by purchasing loans because many distressed properties are in default or are unable to service their debt. Buying the loan is a very effective way to again own commercial real estate.""

Shortly after announcing that it plans to sell more than $410 million in loans, DebtX reported that commercial real estate loan prices increased in January.

This January, the aggregate value of commercial real estate (CRE) loans priced by DebtX that collateralize commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) increased to 76.7 percent, up from 75.9 percent as of December 31, 2009 but down from 81.3 percent in January 2009.

DebtX priced 59,759 CRE loans with an aggregate principal balance of $700.2 billion as of January 29, 2010, and each of these loans, which collateralize 627 U.S. CMBS trusts, received a DXMark--the first objective valuation of commercial real estate portfolios based on actual secondary market loan sales.

""Loan prices rose in January due primarily to the downward shift of the treasury yield curve and a modest tightening of whole loan spreads,"" Greenland said. ""These improvements in the capital markets were partially offset by weak commercial real estate fundamentals.""