Real Estate Slowdown Expected to Continue in 2008

"If the commercial real estate boom of recent years was a grand opus, with millions of square feet of new office buildings being built, bought and leased. Then 2007 was the year the tempo slowed. In 2008, both the ongoing tightness in the debt markets and an expected economic slowdown is likely to result in more of the same, brokers and analysts said."

"The large, debt-fueled buyouts of whole portfolios of buildings by private-equity firms are probably over, analysts and brokers said. That buying spree reached a crescendo in 2007 with New York private-equity firm Blackstone Group acquiring the national portfolio of Equity Office Properties Trust for $39 billion, the biggest leveraged buyout ever, in February, then quickly selling the buildings for a profit."