RCA in the commercial property press:

U.S. commercial property market thawing

Reuters reports: The gap between U.S. commercial property buyers and sellers is narrowing, indicating the shattered market is closer to beginning the painful path to recovery, the head of Prudential Real Estate Investors said on Wednesday.

Prudential Real Estate Investors, or PREI, invests in commercial real estate-related debt and equity on behalf of pension funds and other institutional investors. The alternative investment arm of Prudential Financial Inc (PRU.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) had $42 billion of assets under management, including $26 billion in the United States, at the end of the first quarter.

"Just recently -- and by recently I would measure this in weeks not months -- we've seen the transaction market begin to show some strengthening," Allen Smith, chief executive officer, said at the Reuters Global Real Estate Summit in New York. "Credible players are appearing and bidding on assets.

Commercial real estate sales worldwide in the second quarter are expected to be off 67 percent from a year earlier, according to research firm Real Capital Analytics, with U.S. volume down 83 percent.