Before Robert White founded Real Capital Analytics in 2001, “nobody knew how many office buildings were traded in any given year or how big the volume was in this marketplace,” he told the New York Times. White’s New York-based real estate research firm now tracks commercial real estate deals in 108 countries, applying the metrics from Wall Street to publish quarterly reports for clients, and those metrics haven’t been kind to New York City recently. There is good news, though. “I’m watching very closely the pricing of
office buildings in London, because that city is a very good template
for where Manhattan is headed next,” White said. Last year was a miserable one for New York investment sales, he said, with below $7 billion in deals for all property types in the metropolitan area, down from $77 billion in 2007 and $26 billion in 2008. “When you think of it, $7 billion in deals is nothing — it’s not much more than the price of Stuyvesant Town,” he noted. That dearth in sales means Manhattan no longer sits on its “perennial perch as the No. 1 market. It’s not even in the top 10 of all property types — it’s down to No. 13,” White said.  [NYT]

As the economy braces for what could be an increase in commercial property foreclosures, Robert White of Real Capital Analytics led PBS “NewsHour’s” Paul Solman on a tour of some of Manhattan’s at-risk commercial properties. White said that over-exuberance and optimism led to overpriced commercial towers with little equity. Developer Harry Macklowe’s Worldwide Plaza, for example, which was priced at $1.7 billion, was traded a month ago at a little under $600 million, in part because the building was around 50 percent vacant when it was sold — something few anticipated. “The market was full of such optimism that rents would keep increasing and the buildings would stay fully leased,” White said. “The economy was still growing, banks had a lot of money to lend and there were many investors who also wanted to be in commercial real estate.”