CRE Deals Drop 71% But Price Trends are Still Unclear

The pandemic has caused a 71% drop in real estate deals year over year in April, according to Real Capital Analytics’ Commercial Property Price Indices (CPPI).

“Social distancing measures and travel restrictions have made it difficult to perform the necessary due diligence to close on a property, and many deals that were already in contract fell through,” the report states.

The CCPI states that COVID-19 did not have an impact on pricing for properties that sold in the US like it did on the volume figures. The majority of deal closings in April were deals where the prices were already under negotiations. Those negotiations took place before the “mushrooming” of the crisis and buyers would have risked losing their deposits if the deals were not complete.

The report did highlight some pricing trends, but many of these were a continuation of developments before the pandemic shuttered the US economy.

For example, Wyatt Avery, a senior analyst at Real Capital Analytics in New York, wrote in an analysis of the data that price growth slowed down in the industrial sector, which was part of an ongoing trend.  “Industrial prices gained 8.3% year-over-year, down from the 12.2% rate seen in July,” he wrote.

Apartment prices rose 10.8%, according to the CCPI.

Retail prices increased going into April, according to the report. Prices went up 0.9% over the past three months and went up a total of 3.1% from 2019.

“The sector has been one of the hardest hit due to the widespread shuttering of stores and restaurants, and multiple national retailers filing for bankruptcy,” the report says.

However, the report noted the impacts of social distancing and store closures have not affected pricing yet because owners have not been forced to sell.