Nov. 13 (Bloomberg) -- The price of multifamily homes and apartment buildings fell in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco in the third quarter as more restrictive lending and foreclosure sales pushed down values, PropertyShark.com said.

Median prices dropped 9 percent to $590,000 across New York City's five boroughs, 35 percent to $435,000 in Los Angeles County and 5 percent to $859,000 in the city of San Francisco, according to PropertyShark, a Brooklyn, New York-based online seller of real estate data that tracked sales of residential or mixed-use buildings with two units or more in the three cities.

``It looks to me that everything is coming down,'' Bill Staniford, chief executive officer of PropertyShark, said in an interview. ``You have a potential bottom in L.A., but San Francisco and New York continue to drop. Transactions are frozen in New York and inventory is building up.''

U.S. commercial property sales fell 72 percent this year through October as banks tightened lending amid rising defaults. About 85 percent of domestic banks made borrowing more difficult in the last three months, the highest since the Federal Reserve's Senior Loan Officer Survey began in 1991.

Sales increased 17 percent to 2,356 transactions in Los Angeles, where distressed properties including foreclosures and trustee sales made up 54 percent of transactions, according to PropertyShark. Sales declined 23 percent to 3,039 in New York and fell 9 percent to 334 in San Francisco.

More than three-quarters of New York City's apartment building sales were in Brooklyn and Queens, where the median price of transactions was $645,000 and $580,000, respectively. Manhattan's median was $3.4 million, the Bronx's was $540,000 and Staten Island's was $440,000, PropertyShark said.

The median price per unit declined in all five New York City boroughs, PropertyShark said. Prices fell 19 percent to $283,430 in Manhattan, 5 percent to $250,000 in Brooklyn, 10 percent to $264,285 in Queens, 6 percent to $200,000 in the Bronx and 15 percent to $215,000 in Staten Island.

Median prices per unit declined 25 percent to $168,750 in Los Angeles and 9 percent to $285,917 in San Francisco, said PropertyShark, which compiles its data from published real estate records.

To contact the reporter on this story: Dan Levy in San Francisco at dlevy13@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 13, 2008 13:00 EST