Debt market, sovereign wealth softening yet to impact Manhattan market: report

Midtown office values trending 4 percent higher than last year

Midtown Office Market

A “slight softening” in segments of the debt market and withdrawals from sovereign wealth funds have yet to affect the Manhattan office market, real estate analysis firm Green Street Advisors said in its latest report Tuesday.

Office values in Midtown remained at all-time highs in September, “well above” their previous pre-recession peak in 2007, according to Green Street’s Midtown Manhattan Office Price Index. While Midtown office values held unchanged from August, they trended four percent above year-earlier values and 12 percent over their mid-2007 peak.

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Green Street continued to cite “strengthening market fundamentals and strong investment sales demand” in the Midtown office market, while also noting that macro factors like global political unrest, stock market turmoil, oil prices and a strengthening dollar bear “close monitoring.”

However, the firm pointed to more recent “anecdotal evidence” suggesting a “slight softening in some segments of the debt market and withdrawals from select sovereign wealth funds.” It said such developments “do not yet appear to have extended to Manhattan real estate.”