NEW YORK CITY-Despite a decline in dollar volume from the second quarter, property sales are still showing strength in Q3, officials from Massey Knakal Realty Services said at a press briefing on Tuesday morning. The firm reported $19.2 billion in sales year-to-date, $5 billion more than all of 2010.

Chairman Bob Knakal predicts that sales will be on-pace to hit $25.6 billion by the end of the year. “If we do achieve that total, that would be about four times what the sales volume was in 2009, when it was only $6.9 billion," he said. “We are very optimistic about future of market."

In Q3, total sales volume citywide in ranked in at $6.5 billion, down approximately $2.2 billion from the $8.7 billion in Q2. Knakal said the figures “may be interpreted as a slowing down in the market,” but due to the high number of building sales throughout the first three quarters of the year (1,548), sales are likely to hit 2,064 by Q4, which would be an increase of 46% from the 2009 level of 1,410 sales. “The fact that there was a reduction from the second quarter to the third quarter, we don’t think is all that meaningful,” he said. “We think that was basically caused by constrained supply and the fact that the CMBS market had a hiccup which impacted the very largest transactions in the market. But things are progressing very nicely.”