Commercial property values in the United States are down 44 percent from their peak in October 2007, Bloomberg reported.

And as unemployment continues to reduce demand for apartments, offices and retail space, some analysts predict values may decline by a total of 50 percent before hitting bottom.

“The No. 1 issue facing commercial real estate right now is the value declines that we’ve seen since prices peaked,” said Matthew Anderson, a partner at Oakland, Calif.-based Foresight Analytics LLC.

Anderson’s comment preceded the release of data revealing a 1.5 percent decline in Moody’s/REAL Commercial Property Price Indices in October from September. He also said he tends “to think that the size of the declines moving forward is going to be smaller.” According to Moody’s Investors Service Inc., prices were down 36 percent on a year-over-year basis.

During the next five years, about $1.4 trillion of commercial real estate debt is expected to mature. On about 53 percent of those loans, according to Foresight, the value of the property is less than the amount of the mortgage.

On Dec. 10, Moody’s Investors Service said that as of the end of November, the delinquency rate for U.S. commercial mortgage-backed securities rose to 4.47 percent, nearly six times last year’s rate of 0.75 percent.

“This is the worst that we’ve seen since World War II,” Anderson said.