When it comes to the commercial-mortgage bond market these days,location is everything.

From Webster, Texas to Providence, Rhode Island, borrowers inthe U.S. are coming up short, unable to get new loans as about $59billion in mortgages packaged into bonds comes due in 2012,according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In contrast, $930 millionhas been refinanced on two New York skyscrapers in the past month:Vornado Realty Trust's Park Avenue tower and Sheldon Solow's 9 West57th Street, home to Chanel SA and KKR & Co.

Lenders are reluctant to venture from major urban centers,making it harder for property owners in smaller cities to refinanceeven as unemployment falls to the lowest since February 2009 andconfidence in the economic recovery grows. Banks and insurancecompanies are funneling cash to a select pool of borrowers asmortgages from the real-estate boom start maturing after valuesfell 42 percent since 2007.