In all, there was $2.4 trillion in commercial mortgage debt outstanding — sitting on the books of everything from banks to insurance companies to holders of commercial mortgage backed securities — at the end of the year, the MBA said.

While the level declined, it fell by the lowest amount since the end of the third quarter in 2009 as banks began to wade back into the lending world. Still, it’s hard to think that overall debt will grow any time soon, with countless properties holding outsized billions upon billions of loans made in 2006 and 2007. As those loans come due or are worked out, their debt loads tend to shrink.

Commercial real estate debt is a broad category that includes mortgages tied to office space, hotels, apartments, retail and industrial property. Broken down, the amount of multifamily lending actually increased by $3 billion — the second straight quarter that it grew — as U.S.-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac enlarged their portfolios.