Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) — Billionaire investor Wilbur L. Ross Jr., said today the U.S. is in the beginning of a huge crash in commercial real estate.

All of the components of real estate value are going in the wrong direction simultaneously, said Ross, one of nine money managers participating in a government program to remove toxic assets from bank balance sheets. Occupancy rates are going down. Rent rates are going down and the capitalization rate — the return that investors are demanding to buy a property — are going up.

U.S. commercial property sales are forecast to fall to the lowest in almost two decades as the industry endures its worst slump since the savings and loan crisis of the early 1990s, according to property research firm Real Capital Analytics Inc. The Moody’s/REAL Commercial Property Price Indices already have fallen almost 41 percent since October 2007, Moody’s Investors Service said Oct. 19.