New York Market Overview

Real estate executives are expecting an additional 20 million square feet of surplus office to hit the market as Wall Street employees lose their jobs in addition to the announced Bank of America's takeover of Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy and an unsure future for American International Group. That may lead rents, which have already declined 10 to 15 percent, to decrease.

The market has been showing a decline in taking rents, the bottom line after price negotiations and accounting for concessions, the summer months may have brought the first of a surge in owners their published asking rents is slowly creeping up in Manhattan, though as a whole the market here is still seeing an increase.