Moody's: Commercial Real Estate Prices declined 3.7% in April, Prices at new Post-Bubble Low

Moody's reported that the Moody’s/REAL All Property Type Aggregate Index declined 3.7% in April. Note: Moody's CRE price index is a repeat sales index like Case-Shiller - but there are far fewer commercial sales and there are a large percentage of distressed sales - and that can impact prices and make the index very volatile.

The Moody’s/REAL Commercial Property Price Index dropped 3.7 percent from March and 13 percent from a year earlier. It’s now 49 percent below the peak of October 2007 and at its lowest point in data going back to December 2000 ...

“In a case of the strong getting stronger and the weak getting weaker, major asset/major market prices have recovered more than half of their post-peak losses, while prices for distressed transactions continue to bounce around the bottom,” Moody’s said in the report.

Below is a comparison of the Moodys/REAL Commercial Property Price Index (CPPI) and the Case-Shiller composite 20 index. Beware of the "Real" in the title - this index is not inflation adjusted.

Click on graph for larger image in graph gallery.

CRE prices only go back to December 2000. The Case-Shiller Composite 20 residential index is in blue (with Dec 2000 set to 1.0 to line up the indexes).

According to Moody's, CRE prices are down 13% from a year ago and down about 49% from the peak in 2007. Prices are at new post-bubble lows - and at new lows for the index.