Average asking prices per square foot across all CRE property types dropped the most in February since the pandemic began a year ago, according to new data released by commercial database Crexi. At the same time, the average square footage of listings went up. Newly listed asking price averages decreased 7.34% over January numbers, owing in part to some listings being marked as "unpriced," while square footage across asset classes rose by 11.2%. 

"Just as in the early months of COVID, sellers and brokers are preferring to use the market as their pricing mechanism to begin the negotiation," Crexi analysts write in the firm's National Commercial Real Estate Report for February 2021. "This trend had been generally reverting back to pre-COVID levels of unpriced listings, but seems to have returned in earnest in February."

Amid those pricing drops, however, retail and land values stayed steady and were the only asset class that didn't see a noticeable drop in the average asking price per square foot for new listings. Multifamily and office were hit the hardest, with the former showing a 16.8% decline month-over-month in deal volume driven by larger, cheaper listings coming online.