The recovery in commercial real estate prices continued to gain momentum in 2012. According to the CoStar Commercial Repeat Sale Indices, commercial real estate transaction volume reached a high of nearly $64 billion in 2012. These indices, which are based on more than 100,000 repeat sales since 1996, show a 22 percent jump in dollar volume from 2011 and the highest annual total since 2004. The chart below shows that pricing has continued to make strong gains, as well. While pricing gains have been observed across the real estate spectrum, the difference in the two broadest measures of pricing…

(Japan property market: annual headline returns)   By Max Arkey The total return for Japanese real estate investments was 3.9 percent in the year through the third quarter of 2012, according to the latest figures from IPD Japan. This total return combined an income return of 5.2 percent with a capital return of minus 1.3 percent. Compared to a year earlier, the year-over-year total return has improved by 0.6 percentage points. Income return is slightly down, but the rate at which capital values are falling has slowed from minus 1.9 percent a year ago. In the year to September, apartments…