Manhattan Building Sales Plummet; Recovery Seen

NEW YORK CITY-Judging by first-quarter results, Manhattan investment property sales for 2009 will achieve only a fraction of the volume seen in prior years, says a new report from Massey Knakal Realty Services. However, the report, prepared with advisory firm Miller Cicero, also predicts that velocity will pick up as the year progresses.

“The first quarter annualized sales figure suggests that ’09 will see an additional 59% decline in total dollar sales volume and a 68% decline in the number of sales,” writes John Cicero, managing principal of Miller Cicero, in an introduction to the report. “But we believe this figure to be deceptive because we anticipate activity to accelerate as the year progresses to compensate for fourth quarter 2008′s extraordinarily abysmal number of contract executions.”

Of the 47 building sales analyzed in the report—including the multifamily, office, mixed-use, retail, hotel and development sectors—only seven entailed prices of $25 million or more, and only four properties sold for $100 million or more. These included the $355-million sale of 1540 Broadway to CBRE Investors, the $225-million sale-leaseback of a commercial condo in the New York Times Building at 620 Eighth Ave., Sotheby’s $370-million buyback of its headquarters at 1334 York Ave. and Brack Capital’s $121.2-million sale of the Hilton Garden Inn at 63-67 W. 35th St. to RLJ Development.