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Macklowe low-down? Sales set office space pace

April 8, 2008

The seven office buildings Harry Macklowe bought last year for $7B are now for sale. Is Macklowe N.Y. real estate’s canary-in-a coal mine?

Click Here for Advertisers Website Real estate insiders have been buzzing for weeks about how much Harry Macklowe will realize on the sale of the General Motors Building, hoping that the deal will give them insight into how the Manhattan office market is weathering the credit crisis and the economic slowdown.

Now the seven midtown office buildings that Mr. Macklowe bought last year for $7 billion—using the GM tower as collateral—are being put up for sale, and they should provide an even better perspective on office building values. While iconic towers like the GM Building sell for premium prices that are often driven higher by buyers’ desire to own well-known trophies, the purchase price of these seven properties will be determined by market fundamentals.

“Everyone has been holding back [on selling] assets, because they want to see what these buildings will get,” says Dan Fasulo, managing director of Real Capital Analytics, which tracks real estate transactions. “They’ll create a new baseline for office building sales.”

Experts agree that the properties are all attractive and that the slumping dollar will make them especially alluring to foreign buyers. Still, the deteriorating economy, New York’s weakening office rental market and the credit crunch will make selling the buildings a challenge. Some expect that current conditions will push the buildings’ value 10% to 15% below the price for which Mr. Macklowe bought the properties, known as the EOP portfolio.

Mr. Macklowe was forced to return the seven buildings to a group of Deutsche Bank-led lenders, which is selling them to recoup the $5.8 billion loan made to the developer. Clearly, one of those lenders, Vornado Realty Trust, doesn’t believe that the buildings will generate that much money. In the fourth quarter, it wrote down $57 million of its $66 million of risky debt on the Macklowe properties.

The company has good reason for concern. In the first quarter of this year, the number of sales of New York office buildings fell 59% from year-earlier levels, to 22, according to RCA; the amount of space sold plunged 87%, to 2.9 million square feet. The average sale price, $716 per square foot, was up modestly versus a year earlier but far from the peak of $839 reached in the third quarter of 2007.

Back in February 2007, when Mr. Macklowe bought the seven buildings, financing was cheap. Midtown commercial rents had recently jumped 25%, according to CB Richard Ellis Inc., with all indications pointing to further healthy increases.

The dearth of financing also has made it difficult for Mr. Macklowe to sell the GM Building—especially since the initial asking price was more than $3 billion. Two sources say Boston Properties Chairman Mortimer Zuckerman is negotiating with Mr. Macklowe, with one putting the price tag at $2.8 billion. Mr. Macklowe’s spokesman declined to comment, and Mr. Zuckerman didn’t return a call.

Source: Crains

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Written by NY Politics · Filed Under Real-estate 

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