In one sentence
A loan where the lender's remedy is the property itself, with the borrower and sponsors not personally liable except for negotiated carve-outs.
The longer version
Most institutional CRE lending is non-recourse: the lender underwrites the asset, and if the loan defaults the recovery is the collateral. The exceptions are the carve-outs, which spring personal liability on specified bad acts.
Non-recourse structure drives everything about diligence intensity. When the asset is the whole recovery, the lender verifies the asset like it plans to own it.
Keep reading