Property transactions are down, as every significant source of data — including the Federal Reserve — has been saying. But there are two things to consider. One, some overall statistics of mix suggest that some popular assumptions aren't necessarily true, or at least they're more complicated than it might seem. Two, always be careful about what's used as a benchmark for year-over-year comparisons.

Green Street's Real Estate Alert noted that in 2023, property dollar sales of $5 million to $25 million in size outperformed by percentage change dollar sales of properties with values of $25 million or more, compared to 2022. Both dollar sales categories saw transaction losses, but the percentage of the more expensive properties was much higher. Less expensive properties saw a drop, but smaller.

The same publication, though, had some other interesting observations. The first is an assumption of how some property types are doing much worse than others. There were three pie graphs — one each for 2021, 2022, and 2023 — showing the percentages of total sales for office, industrial, retail, multifamily, hotel, and niche (self-storage and data centers). The percentages changed a little by year, but not much.