By Kyle Fishburn and Allen Kenney

Now there is a new way to track commercial real estate prices. Standard & Poor's and the real estate research and investment management group of Charles Schwab Investment Management, Inc. unveiled the S&P/GRA Commercial Real Estate Indexes (SPCREX) in August. The new commercial property index supplements S&P's existing real estate investment indexes. It records and tracks commercial real estate prices according to property sector and geographic region within the United States.

The SPCREX indexes include a national composite, five geographic regions (Desert Mountain West, Mid-Atlantic South, Midwest, Northeast and Pacific West) and four national property sectors (apartments, industrial, office and retail). Index values are based upon a three-month rolling average transaction price per square foot of commercial space as computed by stock value methodology.

"By way of this launch, S&P is bringing tradability and liquidity to a growing asset class," says David Guarino, director of media relations for Standard & Poor's indexes, hedge funds and mutual funds. "As it is completely based on closed commercial real estate transactions, the index allows investors to account for actual movements in the commercial real estate price in the U.S."