NEW YORK CITY-Multifamily assets fared better than other sectorsin withstanding the worst of the investment sales drought acrossthe five boroughs, says a five-year study from brokerage firm CPEXReal Estate. Although the peak-to-trough drop in the number ofsales for the sector was second only to that suffered bydevelopment parcels, prices for apartment properties held uprelatively well.

With multifamily sales picking up in the fourth quarter of 2009and 2010 signaling the start of a recovery in property salesgenerally, “expectations are for activity and dollar volume tocontinue to grow” in the apartment category, albeit not rising tothe highs seen between 2005 and 2007, the report says. “All in all,multifamily assets have been resilient over the past year ascompared to office, retail and industrial assets and we expect thecategory to continue its preferred status.”

Looking at the five-year period between 2004 and last year, thereport found that the relatively low overall decline in multifamilyprices tended to favor more attractive assets, with lower-tierproperties taking the biggest hit in valuations. From peak totrough, dollar volume for apartments declined 72%, compared to 65%for industrial, 75% for development sites, 80% for retailproperties, 86% for office and 92% for mixed-use assets. Dependingon the sector, those peaks occurred variously in ’05, ’06 and ’07,while ’09 invariably represented the trough.