NEW YORK CITY—Two directional arrows in a chart at the beginning of Robert Knakal's presentation Wednesday, signifying dollar volume and number of properties sold, were pointed downward. A third, signifying values, pointed upward. The 34-year veteran of investment sales said this basic scenario has prevailed for the past two years in New York City commercial property sales.

“That is quintessentially what you see in a market in correction,” Knakal told a packed house at the Asian Real Estate Association of America's Manhattan chapter event, “2017 East Meets West.” Looking at the marketplace overall in terms of the familiar baseball-game analogy, Knakal said “we're in about the fifth or sixth inning of a correction that started about 25 months ago.”

Chairman of New York investment sales for Cushman & Wakefield, Knakal took the AREAA audience through the numbers and their implications. A clear trend is that year to date, the outer boroughs have fared better than Manhattan.