In the years after that, Jon developed two major insights that accelerated the growth of our real estate business. The first was to use collateralized mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) to make bigger acquisitions. CMBS were new securities. Traditionally, if you needed a loan to buy a commercial property, you borrowed from a bank or another big institution. With these new securities, a lender could package your loan with other loans into a tradable security and sell them to investors. It turned your loan into a more liquid and tradable asset.
