Commercial property sales remain frozen

Commercial property sales remain frozen

A recent report by Real Capital Analytics shows just how powerful the credit freeze was on commercial real estate sales in the Tampa Bay region last year.

According to the market-tracking firm, the number of commercial real estate deals in the Tampa area fell 71% to 25 in 2009 compared with the previous year. In dollar terms, volume fell 54% to $458 million.

About half of the deals were in the apartment sector, representing 13 deals totaling $277 million. There were four industrial-building deals ($54 million), four office deals ($80 million), two retail deals ($22 million), two land deals ($24 million) and no hotel deals.

Unless credit starts flowing again, many observers don't expect 2010 to be much better than 2009.