Another Price Drop for Commercial Real Estate

NREI reports on a drop in the latest S&P/GRA Commercial Real Estate Indices updated through September.

Monthly returns for a national index of commercial properties posted a negative 0.8% in September, the first monthly decline since November 2006, Standard & Poor's reported on Dec. 18 when it released September results of its S&P/GRA Commercial Real Estate Indices. The month's decline marked a reversal of August's 1.1% gain and a 0.6% increase reported in July.

On a rolling 12-month basis, the national index still showed a positive 5.1% return in September. Yet that rate of return was down more than a full percentage point from summer figures, including annual returns of 6.6% in June, 6.4% in July and 6.2% in August.

“On a national scale, annual returns appear to be speeding up in their rate of deceleration,” says David Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor's. September results of the indices revealed “annual returns at levels not seen since early 2004,” Blitzer added.

Previous posts on the S&P/GRA Indices can be found here, here and here.