Still, though, the anemic start is very puzzling as the region has very good fundamentals, she says -- and while deals have slowed, pricing has not been affected, at least with trophy product.

Indeed trophy pricing is still at record highs with the sale of 733 10th Street fetching $1,053 per square feet at a 4.7% cap rate, CBRE points out. At the value add end, the $35 million sale of Madison office building attracted significant investor interest, it also said.

Greenwood suspects that investors are being cautious due to an uncertain global economic environment and the US presidential election is past. Real estate generally is not affected by the election cycle but this year is different as there is a higher level of uncertainty, Greenwood said.

Other hints that this might be the reason: bidders seem to be more cautious with more deals falling through than usual, she says. Also marketing times are getting longer.

CBRE noted that foreign buyers are dominating some of the bidder pools and that overall 60% of the buyers in the January through May 2016 deals were cross-border capital. Of that, 87% came from institutions.

WASHINGTON, DC--Undoubtedly, the local CRE community has noticed office investment sales in downtown Washington DC are down this year compared to previous years. Now CBRE has done us the favor of quantifying that drop and putting it into context.

It reports that, at almost $1 billion, office sales volume in Downtown for the first five months of the year is half of the average sales volume during that time period for the preceding three years.

Revathi Greenwood, director of Research and Analysis at CBRE, is reluctant to call 2016 a dud -- yet. As the graph indicates, she tells GlobeSt.com, sales in Washington DC tend to pick up towards the end of the year.

Still, though, the anemic start is very puzzling as the region has very good fundamentals, she says -- and while deals have slowed, pricing has not been affected, at least with trophy product.

Indeed trophy pricing is still at record highs with the sale of 733 10th Street fetching $1,053 per square feet at a 4.7% cap rate, CBRE points out. At the value add end, the $35 million sale of Madison office building attracted significant investor interest, it also said.

Greenwood suspects that investors are being cautious due to an uncertain global economic environment and the US presidential election is past. Real estate generally is not affected by the election cycle but this year is different as there is a higher level of uncertainty, Greenwood said.

Other hints that this might be the reason: bidders seem to be more cautious with more deals falling through than usual, she says. Also marketing times are getting longer.

CBRE noted that foreign buyers are dominating some of the bidder pools and that overall 60% of the buyers in the January through May 2016 deals were cross-border capital. Of that, 87% came from institutions.