NEW YORK CITY-After trending upward for three consecutive monthsbetween November 2009 and January of this year, the monthlyMoody’s/REAL National All Property Type Aggregate Index followed adecline in February with another dip in March, according to areport released Monday. Neal Elkin, president of Real EstateAnalytics, tells GlobeSt.com he’s “not at all surprised.”

Even as the market began to stabilize, “Given a lot of theconflicting pressures on pricing in the asset classes, our view hasbeen that bouncing along the bottom would be the most likelyscenario,” says Elkin, whose firm prepares the Commercial PropertyPrice Indices for Moody’s using Real Capital Analytics data. “Thesetypes of gyrations–up a little bit, down a little bit, up a littlebit—are consistent with that.”

With March’s index slipping 0.5%, following a 2.6% decline inFebruary, commercial property prices are now down 24.9% from 12months ago and 42.1% from their October 2007 peak. The quarterlyindices for property types show retail declining the most in thefirst quarter, with a 4.7% drop. Office, which had been the bestperforming sector, dropped 3.2% in Q1.