A pair of office towers in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is giving commercialreal estate investors more reason to worry that the collapse in oilprices is starting to infect their market.

The biggest tenant, oil and gas producer Samson Resources Corp.,vacated one of the more than a dozen floors it occupied, accordingto a report from the firm that services a $45 million mortgage onthe buildings known as the Williams Center Towers. Samson, which ispreparing to file for bankruptcy protection this month, hasindicated it will abandon another floor next year, and its leasegives it the right to withdraw from more space after that,according to the report.

Samson's shrinking footprint is laying bare the risks faced incities that boomed amid the U.S. shale revolution — and are now themost vulnerable to the commodities rout. That's increasing concernin the market for commercial mortgage bonds, where yield-hungrydebt investors have helped fund everything from office space foroil executives to housing for rig workers.

Real estate investors are watching companies like Samson thathave struggled to find capital amid a plunge in crudeprices. With the value of their reserves declining, banks andeven distressed-debt investors have either pulled back on credit orshown reluctance to provide additional aid.

“It's going to be game over if these companies can't getfinancing again,” said Danielle DiMartino Booth, chief marketstrategist at the research group Liscio Report, who recently left aposition as adviser to former Federal Reserve Bank of DallasPresident Richard Fisher. “Plenty of companies were able to buythemselves six to 12 months of time earlier this year. Unless wesee a rebound, I don't see them getting financing again.”

The pullback has already been straining landlords to the oilindustry.

In Decatur, Texas, the owner of a Candlewood Suites frequentlyused by energy workers has struggled to pay a $4.9 million mortgageafter cutbacks in the industry, according to a loan servicerreport. In July, the mortgage was handed to a so- called specialservicer. Such firms typically decide whether to modify loan termsor foreclose on the property. A message left for the property'sowner at the hotel wasn't returned.

The Texas hotel, which is among properties backing acommercial-mortgage bond created in 2013, is one of severalextended-stay hotels in oil regions that have been affected by theslowdown, according to debt strategists at Barclays Plc. At anextended-stay workers' complex in North Dakota, some 134 unitsof Strata Estate Suites were originally leased to 27 corporatetenants including Halliburton Co., according to documents providedto investors. The loan was among mortgages bundled into $45 millionof commercial mortgage securities in August 2013 and sold toinvestors such as life insurers. The mortgage has been delinquentfor 20 months, Bloomberg data show.

About $16 billion of real estate debt that's now vulnerable todefault because of plunging crude prices was packaged into bondsand sold to investors, according to estimates from NomuraHoldings Inc.

In Tulsa, Samson's still making rent payments for its offices inthe Williams Center Towers, where the company has been occupying 35percent of the buildings' almost 766,000 square feet of space,Barclays strategists led by Jasraj Vaidya wrote in an Aug. 28note. The concern is whether the KKR & Co.- owned company seeksto terminate or scale back its lease during bankruptcy proceedings,the analysts wrote. The mortgage on the office building was bundledinto a bond deal last year.

Brian Maddox, a spokesman for Samson at FTI Consulting,declined to comment. Telephone messages left for the property'sowners were not returned.

While the energy strains have yet to cause any widespreadselling of commercial-mortgage bonds, the industry's woes areadding to a list of risks for a market where demand for higher-yielding assets has allowed Wall Street banks to packageincreasingly risky loans into the securities.

In addition to office towers, commercial-mortgage investors alsoback shopping malls, which have been under siege by onlineretailers. Banks also have been loading more bond deals withproperties in regions that are less economically diverse.

That's particularly an issue in cities and towns that rode theoil boom. In Houston, where more than a third of the local economyis tied to the energy industry, homebuilders and real estateinvestors face a potential housing glut, said Britton Costa, aFitch Ratings analyst who covers real estate investment trusts. Awave of new developments slated to be ready over the next year isincreasing those risks, he said.

“It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better if oilstays low,” said Andy McCulloch, an analyst at Newport Beach,California-based Green Street Advisors. “A lot of operators canhide behind long leases, so losses may not immediately show up inthe financials.”

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