RCA in the commercial property press:

Tishman Seeks Buyer for Five California Buildings

Bloomberg reports: Tishman Speyer Properties LP, the real estate developer that owns Rockefeller Center, is seeking a buyer for five California office buildings at a time when values have fallen thirty percent in the past two years.

Three of the buildings are in Beverly Hills and one each are in San Francisco and Orange County, according to a statement today from the Tishman Speyer Office Fund, an Australia-based property trust with an interest in 18 US buildings.

The fund is seeking to bolster its balance sheet as Tishman Speyer in the US is facing headwinds. Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services this week downgraded the debt on a Washington area properties held by a Tishman Speyer partnership, citing “high leverage” and “declining asset values” in cutting the debt to CCC from BB+. Commercial real estate prices are down almost 23 percent from their October 2007 highs and transactions have plunged as much as 80 percent, according to the Moody’s/REAL Commercial Property Price Indices issued yesterday.

“They’re marketing into significant headwinds, which are caused by poor credit availability, falling rents and rising vacancies in the office sector nationwide,” said Peter Slatin, editorial director of Real Capital Analytics Inc., a New York- based firm that tracks commercial property sales.