Property performance indices have become well established in the UK and other countries. This is important from an investment perspective as it enables comparisons to be made against other asset classes. In this paper we compare the performance of existing valuation based and transactions based indices with a new transactions based index. Specifically we evaluate whether the new transactions index can fulfil the role of a performance benchmark for commercial real estate investments. The paper analyses index construction methods identifying the most appropriate method for construction of the new transactions based index for UK commercial property. The new index is then constructed for a period of over 40 years from 1970 to 2013. We consider how well the new index reflects the underlying market and market movements and compare its performance with both valuation and transactions indices.