Commercial property buyers who had shifted their focus from prime coastal city properties such as in New York and San Francisco to secondary markets like Las Vegas, Dallas and Minneapolis, may be rethinking their strategies as a result of recent financial market volatility, Bloomberg News reported.

Investors had been showing interest in secondary markets amid growing confidence in the recovery and soaring prices in prime cities, Bloomberg said, with transactions increasing sixfold in Las Vegas in the first half of 2011 from the same period in 2010, by about 253 percent in Phoenix, 204 percent in Atlanta and 267 percent in Pittsburgh, according to data from Real Capital Analytics.

Concern, however, that the U.S. property market may only experience sluggish growth in the next few years could stymie this trend before it takes off, sources said. [more]

Influential commercial real estate analyst and frequent media commentator Sam
Chandan has left his job as global chief economist and executive vice president
at commercial property data firm Real Capital Analytics to launch a new venture.

Chandan left the firm last month after only a year and a half, but has not made a
public statement about his future plans.

“I am a huge fan of Real Capital Analytics. It’s just a move in a different
direction,” he told The Real Deal during a break at the National Association of
Real Estate Investment Trusts conference
in Midtown today. [more]

Grubb & Ellis said the exclusive negotiation period for the struggling commercial real estate brokerage to hammer out an acquisition or other strategic alliance with Colony Capital, expired this past Sunday.
The Santa Ana, Calif.-based firm, which hired investment bank JMP Securities in March to explore a potential suitor, said it will continue to discuss a possible deal with Colony Capital, a real estate fund led billionaire Thomas Barrack, and will pursue discussions with other potential partners as well.
Meanwhile, Grubb & Ellis said it has made significant progress with a potential sale of its Daymark Realty Advisors subsidiary, and expects to reach an agreement soon. Daymark, manages more than 30 million square feet of commercial real estate, including 8,700 multi-family apartment units nationwide.  [more]

Financing for New York City real estate projects is back. Of the top 35 deals done in the last 12 months, 24 were refinancing and nine were new loans taken out of acquisitions, according to Crain’s. The largest deal was an $800 million refinancing of 245 Park Avenue, between 46th and 47th streets, for which Brookfield Asset Management and ING Clarion tapped the Bank of China in September 2010. It was followed closely by Boston Properties’ $700 million loan from MetLife for the Citigroup Center at 153 East 53rd Street, between Third and Lexington avenues, in March 2011, and a $650 million refinancing of One Bryant Park between 42nd and 43rd streets in June last year by Bank of America. [more]

From left: Joseph Moinian, 245 Fifth Avenue and Joseph Sitt

Joseph Sitt’s Thor Equities and developer Joseph Moinian have completed the long-awaited deal to buy out Goldman Sachs at 245 Fifth Avenue for $162 million.
The property, near 28th Street, had been up for sale since January, when Moinian and his previous venture partner, Goldman Sachs Whitehall Funds, decided to put the building up for sale through Eastdil Secured.
The property was originally purchased for $190 million, or $620 a square foot, at the height of the market in 2007. [more]

From left: Dan Fasulo, Jahn Brodwin, Simon Ziff and Daniel Alpert

From the April issue: While those in the industry have been relieved to see the New York City commercial real estate market bounce back over the past year, the resulting price increases have prompted many investors and developers to look elsewhere for deals.

Instead of searching for properties to buy in the Big Apple, they are, in many cases, turning to other markets — from prime locations like San Francisco and Los Angeles to secondary markets like Austin, Tex.

“People need to realize that the number of assets truly available for a sales price that makes sense is very few in New York City,” said Daniel Alpert, managing partner of Westwood Capital, a Manhattan-based real estate investment bank. [more]

Wyndham Hotel Group’s under-construction flagship select-service hotel, called TRYP New York City-Times Square South, received a $13.6 million mezzanine loan late last month after the construction lender shut off funds for the project, officials said.

Boston-based UC Funding provided the loan — its first ever loan in New York City — to complete the 173-unit property, located at 345 West 35th Street. The deal will allow the developers to buy the necessary fixtures and equipment for the property and get a certificate of occupancy from the Department of Buildings. [more]

As demand for rental housing surges throughout the country, investors are venturing beyond Class A properties, or newer, well-leased buildings in centrally located neighborhoods of big cities, Bloomberg News reported. According to Real Capital Analytics, sales of apartment building rose 96 percent to $33.7 billion in 2010 from a year earlier. Class B properties and distressed acquisitions accounted for 33 percent of sales in the fourth quarter, compared with 25 percent a year earlier, said Sam Chandan, Real Capital’s chief economist. [more]

U.S. commercial property deals may double this year as confidence builds among investors who believe those values will rebound, Bloomberg News reported. Blackstone Group’s planned $9.4 billion purchase of U.S. shopping centers and Ventas’ proposed $5.7 billion buyout of a healthcare real estate investment trust may be a sign that a wave of commercial real estate acquisitions is coming as buyers regain confidence in the market. “Both these deals are a great signal that liquidity has returned to the commercial real estate space,” Dan Fasulo, managing director of Real Capital Analytics, said. [more]

The Sagamore at 189 West 89th Street (credit: CityRealty) and Bruce Beal Jr.

Related Companies has sold the luxury Sagamore apartment building on the Upper West Side as investor demand for multi-family properties rises. The 265-unit rental building, at 189 West 89th Street, went under contract this month for $140 million, sources told Bloomberg News. The buyer is a unit of Chicago-based private equity firm LaSalle Investment Management. “With the sale of the Sagamore, we recognized an opportunity to both extract value for Related and our partners and to reinvest the capital into our acquisition and development initiatives,” Bruce Beal Jr., executive vice president of Related, said in a statement. The deal is the largest by price for a Manhattan multi-family property since March, according to data from Real Capital Analytics. Demand for apartments is climbing as the city’s rental market tightens. Leases almost tripled in the fourth quarter and median rents rose 1.7 percent from a year earlier to $2,950, appraiser Miller Samuel and brokerage Prudential Douglas Elliman said last month. [more]