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What Are Older Office Towers Worth? Here’s the First Sale in San Francisco’s New Era of Office CRE

by Wolf Richter Wolf Street

Union Bank made a deal to sell its tower at 75% off original listing price, setting the first new benchmark. Other towers waiting in the wings.

We have been tracking what older office towers, many of them from the 1980s and 1990s, are worth when they finally do sell, either in a foreclosure auction or in a regular transaction. Two towers in Houston sold at a foreclosure auction at a price where the lenders – holders of Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities (CMB) – lost 80% and 88% respectively. In the foreclosure sale of the vacant 46-story 1980s “One AT&T Center” in downtown St. Louis, CMBS holders took a 100% loss.