Bloomberg: The vacancy rate at U.S. office buildings will rise to 16.7 percent this year and could reach an 18-year high next year as tenants cut jobs and try to sublet space, property research firm Reis Inc. said.

Forbes: The big commercial property owner says real estate prices are low enough to justify buying. Looking on the bright side of the crashing real estate markets in North America, one of the continent’s biggest property investors is hunting for bargains.

Diana Olick: I spoke to a really interesting investor this morning, John Jacquemin. He is president and CEO of Mooring Financial Corp, a Virginia-based private investment house, and he is actually making money in commercial real estate, while everyone else is losing their shirts. I thought I’d post some of the excerpts that never made it on TV:

CNBC: Spending on U.S. nonresidential construction projects will fall both this year and next as builders delay or cancel plans for hotels, office buildings and retail facilities, an architects’ group predicted Wednesday.

Reuters: The clouds over European commercial property may be about to lift because falling prices have raised rental yields, while inflation pressures elsewhere are making the sector’s index-linked rents a tempting hedge.

Commercial Property News: Dublin-based Quinlan Private, an international private equity and real estate group, has raised $615 million (€400 million) of equity capital from US investors for its Quinlan Private European Strategic Real Estate Fund. The fund is the group’s first one open to American investors, and according to Quinlan it proved quite popular among US institutional investors, endowments, foundations, life companies and high net worth individuals.

Financial Week: Indeed, the commercial real estate industry is facing its most challenging period in years. The loss of thousands of office jobs and the reduction in consumer spending have resulted in shrinking demand for office and retail space nationally for the first time in five years. Meanwhile, retail vacancies have spiked to their highest levels since 1996.

Forbes:  Prices for commercial real estate slipped more than 2 percent in March as it became tougher to borrow money to buy property, Moody’s reported Monday.

CoStar Group:  The 2004-2007 run up in commercial real estate prices was as big a wave as bankers and lenders had ever seen. And they were all eager to jump on board and ride the crest. They did and rode it well until it crashed ashore last summer and had property prices retreating back into a leveling sea.

Construction activity was down and empty space up in the local retail market during the first quarter 2008…