CoStar Group headquarters in Washington, DC. (Photo: CoStar)

WASHINGTON, DC—Pre-recession highs in commercial real estate pricing had some shade thrown on them in September, CoStar Group said Friday. The equal-weighted US Composite Index, one of the two national composite CoStar Commercial Repeat Sale Indices reflecting 1,222 repeat sales, moved 0.8% above its previous August 2007 peak in September, marking the first time this index has surpassed that high watermark. Meanwhile, the value-weighted US Composite Index is now 26.4% above its peak from the previous cycle.

Both of the CCRSI national composite indices rose 2.9% in the third quarter, according to CoStar. Furthermore, all four property sectors tracked by CoStar saw pricing gains in Q3. However, deal volume has continued to taper off, with the $90.7 billion of repeat sales in the first three quarters of 2016 representing a 1.5% decline from the year-ago period.

On a regional basis, the South and West indices easily outpaced those of the Northeast and Midwest, with composite quarterly growth of 2.1% and 2.2%, respectively. Q3 saw the Northeast composite increase just 0.5%, pulled down by the multifamily and industrial indices, while the Midwest composite declined 2.1% during the quarter and grew just 1% over the preceding 12 months. By contrast, the South and West indices each grew by 6.5% year over year.