2200 W Commercial Boulevard

Two Fort Lauderdale office properties are facing a $19.6 million foreclosure lawsuit, the South Florida Business Journal reported. The buildings are located at 5300 NW 33rd Avenue and 2200 W Commercial Boulevard and are 110,010 and 69,959 square feet, respectively. The main tenant at 2200 W Commercial Boulevard is Zimmerman & Partners Advertising — one of the largest advertising agencies in South Florida — with a 45,436-square-foot lease that runs through January of 2014. [more]

More and more South Florida banks are beginning to ease up on their longstanding reluctance to finance commercial properties, according to Miami Today. As banks become more liquid, their mindset is beginning to change. “There are some banks lending today,” said Gary Fitzgerald, executive vice president at City National Bank, which recently made a $13.5 million loan on the Starcreek apartment complex in North Miami Beach. [more]

The monthly decline of commercial real estate prices nationwide is easing somewhat, according to the latest Moody’s/REAL Commercial Property Price Indices. In October, the price indices declined 1.5 percent from a month earlier, a sign that commercial prices may be leveling off, said Nick Levidy, managing director at Moody’s. “The pace of declines has tapered off since the large drops measured in April and May,” Levidy said, adding, however, that more declines may be seen before the market completely bottoms out. Commercial property values declined approximately 36.4 percent in October from the levels seen a year ago during the same time period and 43.7 percent from the values recorded during the market peak two years ago. TRD

National commercial property prices have dropped to 2002 levels, according to the data released today from Moody’s, as the all-property type aggregate index declined to 109.61 in September, a 3.9 percent month-over-month drop. The September level in the Commercial Property Price Indices is 42.9 percent lower than the peak prices recorded in October 2007. Overall market transactions have been low throughout the year, the report noted, as nationwide commercial property transactions number fewer than 400 thus far in 2009. In New York, office building prices saw an index rating of 176 in September this year, a 22.9 drop from the rating seen during the same time period a year earlier. In Florida, apartment building properties had a 111.53 index rating in September, marking a 39.8 percent decline from the same time period a year earlier. TRD