Property Crash Draws Short-Sellers. Better Late Than Never.

With interest rate cuts looking more likely, now isn’t an obvious time to make bearish bets on real estate. Luckily for short sellers, the Fed probably won’t proceed fast enough to wreck their favorite new trade.

Mortgage real-estate investment trusts, which offer bridging loans to commercial property owners, have caught the eye of short sellers. Carson Block’s Muddy Waters hedge fund announced a stake in blue chip Blackstone Mortgage Trust last week. Viceroy Research, the fund that previously bet against troubled real-estate stocks SBB and Adler Group, went public with a position in Arbor Realty Trust in mid-November.