Commercial property sales in Manhattan so far this year are firmly outpacing sales figures during 2009, according to a report released today by commercial real estate services firm Eastern Consolidated. Sales volume reached $2.95 billion in the second quarter, up from $930 million during the same quarter a year earlier. The volume of commercial property sales also increased quarter-over-quarter, climbing 16 percent from the first quarter’s $2.5 billion worth of sales. While this sales volume hasn’t yet reached pre-recession levels, the second quarter of this year was the strongest-performing since the third quarter of 2008, which saw around $7.5 billion in commercial property sales. TRD

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Commercial property sales in the U.S. this year are likely to fall to
their lowest level in 18 years, according to research firm Real Capital
Analytics. About $16 billion worth of commercial transactions will
occur this year, the lowest volume since at least 1991, said Dan
Fasulo, managing director at Real Capital Analytics, and Sam Chandan,
chief economist of Real Estate Econometrics. The commercial mortgage
default rate more than doubled in the second quarter, hitting 2.88
percent, and could hit 4.1 percent, the highest level since 1993, by the
end of this year. [more]