Building sales double in Q3, report shows

The commercial real estate market has shown moderate improvement
quarter-over-quarter, but still not enough to compensate for the
battering the industry has endured over the last year, according to
a new report from commercial brokerage Eastern Consolidated. One bright spot in the
report is commercial building sales performance among non-multi-family
properties. Sales volume among those properties hit $1.08 billion in
the third quarter, nearly double the $510 million seen in the second
quarter this year. Even so, the report points out that this uptick in
volume is due largely to the sale of two buildings, 825 Eighth Avenue
and 70 Pine Street, rather than a broad-based improvement. The report
is equally ambivalent on the subject of multi-family property sales.
While the data “clearly indicates a turnaround in Manhattan
multi-family sales,” the sales volume has much room
for improvement. The third quarter saw 101 multi-family buildings
closed, up from 66 in the previous quarter, while price per square foot
inched up to $271 from $260. TRD