While several of the city’s top brokers said the leasing market is approaching a floor for the current down cycle, potential office building buyers are preparing for years of further rent declines, real estate experts said at a forum this morning. “This is a unique city. It is at the bottom or close to [it],” Bruce Mosler, president and CEO of Cushman & Wakefield, said of office leasing in Manhattan. He was on a panel organized by business publisher Bisnow at Cooper Union. But just half an hour earlier at the same event, Michael Fascitelli, president and CEO of landlord Vornado Realty Trust, said potential buyers of office buildings were not predicting rents to increase for several years. He said that expected annual rent increases during the boom years, which were as high as 15 percent, are now at zero. And they could remain at zero for years. He added that to buy a building, a purchaser has to forecast a rent increase at some future time. [more]