Helping to drag office down in the Eastern US, where it was the worst-performing of the major food groups, was the "poor performance" of the sector in New York City. The year-over-year decline of 38.1% for New York was slightly greater than the regional drop of 37.1% during the same time period.

The other two office markets with transaction volume great enough to measure at least annually--San Francisco and Washington, DC--fared considerably better, with 12-month declines of 21.3% and 27%, respectively. The other relatively local market--in this case, statewide--measured by the indices, Florida apartments, declined by 46.1% year-over-year.

In keeping with the Florida dropoff, the worst-performing of the four regions measured in the Moody's/REAL indices was the South, with three of the four property sectors suffering annual price declines of greater than 30%. Of these, the steepest regional drop was incurred by apartments, off 51.8% from 12 months earlier. By contrast, the multifamily sector in the East saw a year-over-year drop in values of just 13.2%, while the West saw a drop-off of 18.9% and Southern California prices experienced a 15.9% decline.

Regionally, Southern California fared the best on a year-over-year basis, with no sector experiencing a price decline of 30%. Office prices there have declined 27.8% since October 2008, industrial prices by 24.2% and retail by 22.9%.

On the positive side, the Moody's/REAL report says October's monthly transaction volume was the year's second highest at 407 sales, including 97 repeat sales, and dollar volume was the year's greatest at $5.4 billion. That dovetails with RCA's observation last week that transaction volume will continue to rise through 2010, and that the total of significant transactions next year "could easily top $100 billion," more than double the $45 billion expected for this year's tally.