The six-year-old online real estate data firm PropertyShark.com is opening a new front in the commercial listing wars by publishing free local retail and office listings, in a direct but limited challenge to market leaders Costar Group and Loopnet. While not yet complete, PropertyShark.com began listing office and retail space availabilities in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens several months ago, but discussed the plans publicly for the first time with The Real Deal. The company plans to have comprehensive retail listings by January and office listings by the end of the first quarter of 2010, company founder Matthew Haines said. That information would be followed in the second quarter with commercial property sales listings. “We want to have the most comprehensive and the most accurate database of listings available,” Haines said. “We want to capture market share from Loopnet, Costar and the New York Times.”
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PropertyShark.com expands commercial listing resources

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It has been taken as an article of faith in the current downturn that tenants are shying away from highly leveraged buildings in an effort to protect themselves against possible building service cutbacks or other interruptions tied to onerous debt-service payments.

High leverage along with financially strapped ownership, legal uncertainty or extremely high vacancy, lead to tenants shunning leasing in certain buildings, brokers have said.

As recently as last week, Real Estate Board of New York panel member Isaac Zion, a managing director at SL Green Realty, said relatively low leverage on the company’s buildings was an advantage.

“Most of our buildings have very low leverage, so it is a positive. We see sort of — for the tenants that are actually moving — there is a flight to quality,” Zion said.

But data requested by The Real Deal from two research firms reveals that the situation is complex, and that high leverage in some buildings leads to high availabilities, while in others it does not. [more]

While commercial real estate experts predict a rise in distressed securitized loans for New York City over the next year, new data shows the number of assets added to the tally last month actually fell. The quantity of loans transferred to special servicers dropped sharply last month, and those placed on servicer watchlists declined slightly, new data provided by financial tracking firm Trepp to The Real Deal shows. Only three New York City loans were transferred to a special servicer in September, down from 13 the month before, the figures indicate. At the same time, the volume of assets placed on a servicer’s watchlist fell slightly to 40 from 50 the month before. [more]