Top 5 Most Expensive U.S. Commercial Sales

As Google contemplates buying its New York City headquarters for $2 billion, AOL’s Daily Finance takes a look at the five largest commercial real estate deals in U.S. history. All of them, it turns out, are in Manhattan.

1. Stuyvesant Town: $5.3 billion
These 110 building, 14-story, rent-stabilized apartments were sold in a deal that closed right before the real estate meltdown. Since then, the buyers have turned the property back to their creditors.

2. GM Building: $2.8 billion
This is the single most expensive purchase of an individual building ever. Boston Properties, Goldman Sachs (GS), and Meraas Capital purchased it in 2008.

3. Rockefeller Center: $1.85 billion
This complex houses Radio City Music Hall, the GE Building, and the Bank of America Building. Goldman Sachs and Tishman-Speyer sold it to Lester Crown.

4. 666 5th Avenue: $1.8 billion
Its sale in January 2007 was, at that time, the most ever paid for a single office building.

5. Worldwide Plaza: $1.74 billion
Macklowe Properties bought the property in February 2007. About two-and-a-half years later, it was sold for about $600 million, a 65 percent decline in value.

Source: Daily Finance (10/03/2010)