Distressed Sales at 2% of Total Transactions

Among transactions of $2.5 million or over, distressed sales accounted for less than 2% of sales. Despite the rise in vacancy rates, there are little distressed sales compared to the Great Recession when distressed sales made up nearly 20% of sales. One reason is that investors like REITS are less leveraged this time compared to the Great Recession. During the Great Recession, the debt to total market capitalization (debt plus equity) of equity REITS market hit a peak of 57.5%.1 As of March 2021, the debt to equity ratio is at 32.3%, according to Nareit.