CRE Transaction Volumes Plummeted In 2023, But Prices Were More Resilient

Commercial property sales volume sank like a stone in 2023, tallying just $374.1B, a 51% drop from the year before, according to MSCI Real Capital Analytics 2023 Capital Trends report. 

The conditions were "reminiscent of the worst parts of the Global Financial Crisis," the report's authors wrote.

Apartments saw the largest decline in sales volume year-over-year, totaling $119B in 2023, a 61% annual drop. The sector has seen softening rents and an end to the multifamily frenzy that marked the early pandemic years. 

Office saw a 53% year-over-year decline in sales volume last year, with just $3.1B in sales transacting in 2023. 

Though the slumping sales figures represent a staggering fall from the highs seen in 2022, compared to the average annual deal volume figures for 2015 to 2019, sales activity was only down 32%, the report noted. 

"The 51% fall in activity for 2023 was thus, in part, a painful fall from a temporary high in the market," the report's authors said. 

Prices, which eager investors have been watching closely, have not tumbled quite as dramatically. Only one property type saw a double-digit change in pricing year-over-year in December: Prices for offices were 16.1% lower than in 2022. That drop was the largest of the property types surveyed, according to the Real Capital Analytics CPPI, which tracks the values of property sales that closed. 

Apartments saw an 8.4% drop in pricing and retail saw a 5.5% decrease, stopping short of the fire-sale discounts that many investors had been awaiting.

When comparing 2023's CRE prices to their peaks reached in early 2022, before the Federal Reserve undertook its interest rate-raising campaign, some of the decreases are more dramatic. But again, the declines were concentrated in the office sector, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

Central business district office buildings saw a 40% drop in value in 2023 from their 2022 peaks, while overall, office saw a 20% decline. Apartments are valued at just 15% less than their 2022 peak, hotels are seeing a less than 5% discount and industrial real estate hasn't budged at all from its 2022 peak, WSJ reported.