A version of this article first appeared in the CNBC Property Play newsletter with Diana Olick. Property Play covers new and evolving opportunities for the real estate investor, from individuals to venture capitalists, private equity funds, family offices, institutional investors and large public companies. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.Commercial real estate dealmaking is having a rough 2025, after gaining significant momentum coming out of the pandemic. Transactions are still happening, but they have stalled at well below pre-Covid levels. The overall dollar value of deals has grown just 5% from last year as of the third quarter, according to new monthly data provided by Moody’s as a media exclusive to CNBC’s Property Play. It tracks the top 50 CRE property sales across the U.S.Trends in September reveal several themes: Flight to quality, economic uncertainty hitting the hotel sector hard, and a growing interest in two beleaguered sectors — office and retail.The flight to quality can be seen in the average dollar size of sales in September, up to $12.7 million, compared with the average of $11.2 million over the two years prior. Of the 50 top deals closed, 29 were for over $100 million. The volume of $100 million-plus deals in the third quarter was up 35% over last year, while the volume of smaller deals has been flat or shrinking.”We had a lot of volume growth, recovery, after the first Fed rate hikes in 2022-2023. 2024 was a pretty good year,” said Kevin Fagan, head of CRE capital market research at Moody’s. “We saw significant volume expansion, and that really has paused given all the uncertainty in 2025, albeit for large transactions, which tend to be the higher quality properties.”Fagan noted that there is much more certainty among investors in higher quality properties, and that’s why …
