by Calculated Risk on 12/30/2008 06:43:00 PM

From the NY Times: A Renter’s Market for Manhattan Offices

Even to industry veterans who have lived through other downturns, the precipitous decline in the Manhattan office market, especially in Midtown, has been startling.

“We have fallen further faster than any time in the last 20 years,” said Mitchell S. Steir, chief executive of Studley, a national brokerage firm that represents tenants. “There has been more damage to real estate values in the last four months than in any other four-month period. The pace with which it has occurred has been astonishing.”
...
[B]rokers say that actual rents have fallen much further than the data suggests. Studley said that the asking rents for 40 percent of the spaces included in its research are listed as “negotiable.”

“No one knows what the rents are, because there has been very little activity for the past three months,” said Ruth Colp-Haber, a partner at Wharton Property Advisors, which represents small to medium-size tenants. “No one is paying attention to the asking rents.”
...
[A]ctual rents have slipped as much as 25 percent since the summer, said Mitchell L. Konsker, a vice chairman of Cushman & Wakefield.

And the market will probably be flooded with sublease space in 2009.