550 Madison Avenue (credit PropertyShark)

A crush of large class A buildings for sale in Manhattan could be a sign of a real estate bubble in the making, commercial brokerage Avison Young states in its first-quarter investment sales report, obtained by The Real Deal.

The total dollar volume of New York City commercial real estate sales increased to $8.6 billion from $5.8 billion year-over-year — a 46 percent increase and the best quarterly results since mid-2011, the report states. [more]

29 Ryerson Street and 256-266 Flushing Avenue

A Brooklyn company is in contract to purchase an eight-story warehouse building and adjacent one-story structure in Clinton Hill, a stone’s throw from the Brooklyn Navy Yard, for $26.25 million, and convert it to hotel, retail and offices uses, sources familiar with the transaction said.

The buyer, an entity called Ryerson Equity with an address in Borough Park, plans to acquire the 192,000-square-foot structure at 29 Ryerson Street, as well as the lot next door at 256-266 Flushing Avenue, which includes an 8,070-square-foot building, the sources said. The property belongs to Robert Lewis, who owns the document storage company Total Records Information Management. [more]

From the March issue: Despite the large lease extension signed by Macy’s in Midtown’s Penn Plaza district, prices and availability in the Manhattan office market remained stagnant last month. And insiders predict that conditions will remain flat for the next few months. “The general thinking in the brokerage community is that the first half of the year will be flat, with a pickup and growth in the latter half of the year on an accelerated basis into 2014,” said David Greenbaum, president of the New York City Office Division of Vornado Realty Trust, during the firm’s fourth-quarter earnings call last month. [more]

From the March issue: This is the second installment of reporter Adam Pincus’ five-part online and print series examining the top moneymakers of commercial brokerage in 2012.

In the cutthroat world of Manhattan office leasing, brokerages are regularly trying to best one another by finding new landlords and tenants to represent. But which firm actually does the most deals? [more]

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From the March issue: This is the first installment of reporter Adam Pincus’ five-part online and print series examining the top moneymakers of commercial brokerage in 2012.

Commercial property sales in New York City surged in 2012, boosting transaction volume and revenue for most, but not all, of the city’s investment brokerage firms. Buyers spent $39.1 billion purchasing commercial real estate in New York City last year, according to figures from Massey Knakal Realty Services. [more]

From the February issue:

From the February issue: The recent sale of a hulking, three-block-long office building straddling the border of Soho and the Meatpacking District may provide relief to tenants priced out of the famously tight Midtown South leasing market. That’s because the buyers — a partnership of Fortress Investment Group, Atlas Capital Group and Westbrook Partners who purchased the property from long-time investor Eugene Grant — could get more aggressive about wooing new tenants in with competitive leasing prices. [more]

32-01 57th Street and a Tibetan Community performance

The oldest and largest organization for Tibetans in North America has purchased an industrial building and adjoining vacant lot for $4.4 million in Woodside, Queens, and is planning an expansion of its communal and social services, as well as its affiliated school.  [more]

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From the January issue: The uncertain economy kept larger companies at bay in 2012 when it came to buying and leasing Manhattan office buildings. On the investment sales side, the top 10 priciest building sales of last year included only three office buildings — a weak showing compared to the year before, when there were eight. Meanwhile, there was a steep drop-off on the office-leasing front, which saw activity fall by as much as a third from 2011, preliminary data from Cassidy Turley revealed. [more]

Eastern Consolidated’s chief economist Barbara Byrne Denham and 666 Fifth Avenue, which help retail jumo 729 percent, with Vornado’s $707.8 million purchase.

Manhattan’s retail property sales volume surged in the fourth quarter, posting sevenfold increase,  its strongest performance since 2007, according to preliminary data from Eastern Consolidated, cited by the New York Observer. The final quarter of 2012 saw nearly $13 billion in sales volume, which is the best increase since record-breaking sales volumes — fueled fears of impending capital gains taxes – were posted. The market peaked in the second quarter of 2007 at $19 billion. “This was definitely fiscal-driven growth,” Barbara Byrne Denham, Eastern Consolidated’s chief economist, said.  “Sellers wanted to cash out and buyers knew it, so they were eager to come to the table as well.”… [more]