Commercial real estate brokers say privately that they can’t remember such a pitiably slow season for leasing or for sales.
The recent collapse of what should have been a no-brainer auction of the Flatiron Building, when the high bidder failed to come up with a down payment, might symbolize the futility many feel.
CBRE’s first-quarter survey confirms that if not for a few large office-market renewals, there would hardly be any leasing market at all.
The only good news was that Manhattan renewals totaled 1.49 million square feet, up a whopping 72% over 1Q 2022.
The deals included Two Sigma at 100 Sixth Ave. (265,217 sf); Cadwalader at 200 Liberty (225,301 sf); and CBS at 555 W. 57th St. (186,882 sf).
But total leasing activity of 3.85 million sf was 35% behind the five-year quarterly average of 5.89 million sf.
Availability inched upward to 19.7 over the fourth quarter and net absorption was negative 1.86 million sf.
Mike Slattery, CBRE director of New York tristate research, said the pattern was “common during times of uncertainty.”
[Written in collaboration with other media outlets with information from the following sources]
