Real Estate Investors May Resort to Prayer
As the president of Silverstein Properties, Larry Silverstein, recently remarked on my television show: “The capital markets’ dislocation in real estate is the worst I have seen in my 55 years in real estate.”
The dislocation of those markets has had a critical effect on the sales of commercial properties in New York City. Few properties are selling at values that were achieved in 2006 and 2007, and sales volume is down at least 15% from its peak.
“Investment sales for properties which were closed or under contract for the first six months amount to $14 billion, which is off from the total volume of $38 billion for first six months of 2007,” the chief operating officer for the New York metro region at Cushman & Wakefield, Joseph Harbert, said.
“Foreign investors, mostly from the Middle East, China, Ireland, Sweden, and Germany, accounted for 40% of the purchasers of property during the first half of the year,” he added.