Prices of commercial real estate like office buildings, malls and hotels fell further in July, according to a measure published by Moody’s Investors Service on Monday.
The rating agency’s Moody's/REAL Commercial Property Price Indice was down 5.1% from June, following a 1% drop in the prior month. This gauge is now 30.8% below a year earlier and 38.7% below the peak measured in October of 2007.
At the same time, the volume of sales has dropped this year by nearly a third from a year ago. According to Moody’s, there were 375 sales a month in the first seven months of the year, down from 1,100 a month in 2008.
Moody's Regional Property Type Indices show prices for apartments in the East performing significantly better than in other markets. In the East, apartments have declined 6% in the past year, and 10.5% in the past two years. Nationally, apartment prices have declined 24.4% in the past year.
Other notably weak markets include the office and industrial markets of Southern California. In that region, office property values have declined 25.8% and industrial property values have decreased 24.2% from a year ago.
