The coronavirus outbreak helped push about $146 billion of commercial real estate into distress, serious risk of bankruptcy or default at the end of last year, concentrated in hotels and retail, Bloomberg Business reported, citing data compiled by Real Capital Analytics. However, Bloomberg reported that for commercial properties, the worst may still be to come.

“We have tons of stuff that’s in purgatory,” Manus Clancy, senior managing director at Trepp, told Bloomberg. “The workout notes every month say the special servicer and the borrower are talking about forbearance and extension.”

Bloomberg reported that a glimpse of what lies ahead is provided by the $540-billion market for mortgage loans bundled into securities. About 7.58% of the total were at least 30 days late on a payment in January, led by 19.19% of hospitality loans and 12.68% of retail loans, according to Trepp.

The special servicing rate, a harbinger of default, was 9.72% for the overall market, including nearly a quarter of hospitality loans and 17% of retail loans.

Roughly $430 billion of commercial real estate debt comes due this year, out of $2.3 trillion that matures over the next five years, according to Morgan Stanley. That’s in contrast to the dwindling pile of distressed corporate bonds and loans, which has shrunk to around $110 billion from almost $1 trillion last March as firms exit bankruptcy and markets rally.

Investors raised a record amount of capital for distressed-debt strategies last year, and there’s still $84 billion sitting on the sidelines, according to the latest data from Preqin. With commercial property distress gauges at the highest level since 2013, those investors will have plenty of places to put their money to work, Bloomberg reported.

“This is by far the most active distressed and opportunistic market for commercial real estate that I’ve seen in my 15-year career,” said Adam Sklar, a portfolio manager at Monarch Alternative Capital, whose $9-billion fund specializes in those strategies.