New York Commercial Property Sales Plunge 61% in Credit Freeze

By David M. Levitt

Nov. 4 (Bloomberg) -- New York City commercial real estate transactions plunged 61 percent in 2008 through October as the global credit crisis roiled lending and sidelined buyers.

About $17 billion of transactions have closed so far and the market is headed for its worst year since 2004, according to data from Real Capital Analytics Inc. of New York. Sellers have made 237 deals of $5 million or more, a four-year low in a market that posted a record $51 billion in sales in 2007.

``The banks are not lending, and most of them are saying we're done for the year,'' said Scott Latham, executive vice president for New York investment sales at Cushman & Wakefield Inc., the largest closely held commercial brokerage. ``In all likelihood, you will see next to no transactions between now and the end of the year.''

The property recession that began in housing during 2006 is spreading to the commercial market. About 85 percent of domestic banks tightened lending standards on commercial and industrial loans to large and mid-size firms in the past three months, the highest since the Federal Reserve's Senior Loan Officer Survey began in 1991, the Fed said yesterday. Financial firms have recorded writedowns and losses of more than $680 billion.

The office market will likely get worse in 2009 and may not improve for at least another year, said Andrew Simon, executive managing director for the New York City office of NAI Global, a worldwide network of 325 independent commercial property brokerages. The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., the takeover of Merrill Lynch & Co. and the city comptroller's forecast that New York may lose as many as 165,000 jobs are also weighing on the market.

No Rosy Outlook

``I don't think the first half of 2009 is going to be very rosy,'' said Simon. ``I believe you're talking about a year from now before you see more movement toward normalcy.''

Buyers and sellers are looking for a bottom, he said.

``People are going to be waiting on the sidelines until a floor is established,'' said Simon. ``People aren't going to sell unless they have to sell. Unless that floor is established you will not see significant sales.''

With no letup in sight for the property industry, investors have dumped real estate investment trusts focusing on offices.

The 14-member Bloomberg Office REIT Index lost 43 percent in the 12 months through October, led by Maguire Properties Inc. and SL Green Realty Corp., which together control almost 50 million square feet of office space in the Los Angeles and New York metropolitan areas.

Sales Fall

SL Green, the biggest owner of Manhattan office buildings, has dropped 65 percent in the 12 months through October. Maguire, the largest owner of downtown Los Angeles office towers, has plunged 87 percent and is the worst performer in the index.

Global commercial sales fell 57 percent this year through August, Real Capital said in an Oct. 9 report. In the third- quarter, they fell 64 percent from the same period a year ago, according to preliminary data from the company.

In the U.S., sales have declined 72 percent this year through October, the biggest drop since the firm's recordkeeping began in 2001, Real Capital said. Starting in 2004, property investors, fueled by cheap and abundant debt, began an unprecedented run to $514 billion of U.S. deals in 2007, said Dan Fasulo, Real Capital's director of market analysis.

``I think it will be a while before we get to that figure again,'' Fasulo said. ``We're going to do less than half of that in 2008.''

`Disastrous' September

September was ``disastrous'' for the financial and commercial property markets, Real Capital said. Office sales totaled $13.4 billion in the third quarter in the U.S., the lowest since the first quarter of 2004. Sales for all of 2008 aren't likely to exceed the volume of the first quarter of 2007.

``Until we have some kind of watershed transaction that gives people a sense of what the market is, you're not going to see a lot of transactions,'' Lynne Sagalyn, director of the Paul MilsteinCenter for Real Estate at Columbia University, said in an interview.

Sales involving New York real estate investor Harry Macklowe, perhaps commercial real estate's most prominent casualty of the credit crisis, accounted for more than two- fifths of New York's year-to-date dollar figure through October.

Macklowe paid $6 billion last year for seven Midtown skyscrapers, primarily using short term debt. His lender, Deutsche Bank AG, took control of the towers in February and sold five of them for $2.83 billion. Macklowe also sold the General Motors Building and three other buildings for $3.97 billion to Mortimer Zuckerman's Boston Properties Inc.

Mortgage Originations Sink

Second-quarter commercial and multifamily mortgage originations tumbled 63 percent in the second quarter from the same period a year earlier, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association in Washington.

Office property loans fell 65 percent, retail property loans fell 63 percent and industrial property loans slid 57 percent, the MBA said. Loans slated for the commercial mortgage- backed securities market declined 98 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, the group said.

Financing of deals by so-called portfolio lenders, companies like commercial banks and life insurers that originate loans and keep them on their books, was also down. Loans by banks fell 29 percent and 27 percent for insurers, the MBA said.

The few deals being made usually require sellers to either provide financing or allow buyers to take over their existing loans, said Howard Michaels, chairman of the New York-based Carlton Group LLC, a real estate investment banking firm, which arranged the recapitalization of the GM Building for Macklowe in 2004, and Chicago's Sears Tower in 2007.

Wachovia Sale

At 1372 Broadway, a 20-story pre-World War I office building in New York's Garment District, buyer Lloyd Goldman received financing for 86 percent of the tower's cost from the seller, Wachovia Corp., the lender being acquired by Wells Fargo & Co.

Wachovia and partner SL Green sold the building for $274 million, $61 million less than what they paid a year before, according to city records. The price dropped $20 million from the signing of the contract in July and last month's closing, said people familiar with the transaction.

A standoff between sellers and buyers over price appears to be stalling the market, said Michaels.

``Most people are waiting to see how 2009 shakes out. Until then, nobody's putting any buildings on the market unless they have to.'' he said. ``I don't think that anybody would voluntarily sell into this market right now.''

Two properties remain on the market five months after they went up for sale. They are Worldwide Plaza on Eighth Avenue, a 1.7 million square-foot tower, and 1540 Broadway in Times Square, the former Bertelsmann Building.

The seller of both buildings: Harry Macklowe's lender, Deutsche Bank.

To contact the reporter on this story: David M. Levitt in New York at dlevitt@bloomberg.net.