Borrowers perk up as loan requests jump.

Borrower enthusiasm as measured by loan origination requests clearly perked up in the second half of 2009, but not enough to offset the slower pace established earlier in the year, Cambridge Realty Capital Companies reports.

The Chicago-based senior housing/healthcare lenders reported 298 loan origination requests totaling $4.03 billion in 2009, compared with 333 requests totaling $4.77 billion a year earlier.

"Given all the challenging economic news they had to deal with, borrowers were out in surprisingly large numbers. But availability of capital from traditional lending sources remained problematic throughout the year," said a spokesman.