The US real-estate industry is lobbying the Federal Reserve for modifications to a bailout program that the industry said may avert a wave of commercial-property defaults.

Real-estate owners and investors who have talked to the Fed predict the central bank will begin offering some five-year loans under the government's Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, or TALF. That is longer than the three-year loans being offered.

While it may be a small change, the length of loans is a critical matter to the Fed, which prefers to make short-term loans. Longer-dated loans could make it more difficult for the Fed to fight inflation, as the bank can't pull back the money injected into the economy.

Wall Street Journal