The 1.4-million-sq.-ft. Williams Tower, formerly known as the Transco Tower, was designed by Philip Johnson and John Burgee Associates for Gerard Hines in the early 1980s. The building, which was completed in 1983, features 64 stories to match the price of the building’s anchor tenant, Transco Energy Corp.’s, stock at the time of construction. Over the past three decades, the tower passed from Gerald D. Hines Interests to Transco Tower Ltd., a partnership involving Kuwaiti investors, to Hines REIT. It was last sold to Advisers Inc. in March 2013 for $412 million.

555 Mission Street is one of the newer assets on our list, as Tishman Speyer completed the 556,319-sq.-ft. office building just seven years ago, in 2008. In spite of being a recession baby, the building was almost 90 percent occupied by early 2011, counting global consulting firm Deloitte LLP and law firm DLA Piper among its tenants. It is the tallest office tower to be built in San Francisco in about 30 years. Designed by Heller Manus Architects and Kohn Pedersen Fox, 555 Mission Street was also the first class-A office building in the city to achieve LEED Gold certification. In 2012, Union Investment bought the asset from Tishman Speyer for $446.5 million.

Home of the Dallas Petroleum Club, the Chase Tower was completed by Trammell Crow in 1987 and was designed by Richard Keating, of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Besides its close proximity to many Dallas landmarks, including the Dallas Museum of Arts and Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, the building boasts many on-site amenities (it even publishes its own quarterly newsletter). Chase Tower is also a TV star—it featured as the home of Ewing Global on the hit TV series Dallas. Hines is the current owner of the property.

The Time Life Building, at 1271 Avenue of the Americas, boasts “great location, with a dramatic presence,” according to Andrea Olshan. The building, part of the Rockefeller Center complex, was designed by Wallace Harrison, of Harrison, Abramovitz, and Harris, and opened in 1959. Like the Chase Tower, the Time Life Building is a TV star in its own right—it serves as the fictional home of Sterling Cooper & Partners on the AMC 60s-era drama Mad Men. The Rockefeller Group owns the building, with tenants including Time Inc., CBS and E-Trade.

Trammell Crow developed this 790,000-sq.-ft. building right before the downturn hit, in 2007. Creative Artists Agency serves as the anchor tenant at the property, with other tenants including Ares Management, Fidelity Investments and UBS. Gensler served as the architect on the building. JP Morgan Asset Management bought the building from Trammell Crow last year for $401 million, or more than $760 per sq. ft.

One Market Street, otherwise known as the Spear Tower, in San Francisco, was first completed in 1976 and underwent a renovation by Cesar Pelli & Associates in 1996. Morgan Stanley Real Estate and Paramount Group own the 965,699-sq.-ft. property. The Paramount Group paid Morgan Stanley a whopping $720 million for a 50 percent stake in the whole One Market Plaza complex back in 2007. (The complex also includes the Steuart Tower). Last year, Blackstone purchased a 49 percent stake in the property from Paramount, in a deal that valued the complex at more than $1.2 billion. The Spear Tower received LEED Gold certification in 2012. By some accounts, it’s the most prestigious office address in San Francisco.

If you are looking for truly spectacular views, the windows in some offices at this 247,247-sq.-ft. building look out on the Pacific Ocean. 100 Wilshire was designed by Cesar Pelli for Lawrence Welk and completed in 1971. Douglas Emmett is the current owner of the property. Tenants include Orion Health, Guggenheim Partners Asset Management and Macpherson Energy Corp., among others.

Is there any building more iconic than the Empire State? It might be one of the older assets on our list, having been completed in 1931, but it’s also among the world’ best known, featuring in any good landscape image of New York City and serving as the backdrop for a number of classic films, from King Kong to An Affair to Remember to Sleepless in Seattle. In 2013, the building’s owner, Malkin Properties, orchestrated a $930 million IPO for the 2.48-million-sq.-ft. asset. William F. Lamb was the architect behind the 1,250-foot structure.

To average New Yorkers and tourists, 9 West 57th Street might be best-known for its curved façade and the bright red number 9 sculpture in front of its entrance, but the building also seems to rank quite high among commercial real estate experts. Every single person we interviewed for this story mentioned 9 West 57th Street among their top picks, in part because it offers unobstructed views of Central Park. “It’s an iconic building,” says Olshan. 9 West 57th was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill for Sheldon Solow and completed in 1974. The 1.4-million-sq.-ft. building is credited with spurring the redevelopment of Manhattan’s Plaza District into one of the most successful office districts in the city, and was substantially pre-leased when it came on the market, in spite of being developed during a downturn. When private equity firm Benefit Street Partners signed a lease at the property last spring, it agreed to rent of $200 per sq. ft., according to Crain’s New York Business. Not surprisingly, Sheldon Solow never attempted to sell the asset, which also houses Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Apollo Global Management and Providence Equity Partners.

“Highest rents not only in the city, but in the country, [and] views, views, views,” says Cynthia Foster, president of office services with Colliers International, about the GM Building, at 767 Fifth Avenue, the only building to surpass 9 West 57th Street on investors’ wish list. Designed by Edward Durell Stone and Emery Roth & Sons for General Motors in the late 1960s, it overcame an “ugly duckling” reputation to garner both stratospheric rents and a record sales price, when Donald Trump and Conseco Inc. sold it to Harry Macklowe for $1.4 billion in 2003 (the intense bidding wars for the asset became the subject of the book “The Liar’s Ball.”) The 2-million-sq.-ft. building reached another record price in 2008, when Boston Properties bought it for approximately $2.9 billion. In addition to its office space, GM Building has also served as a major draw for image-conscious retailers, as it was for many years home to the F.A.O Schwarz toy store and houses one of New York’s biggest Apple stores. In 2013, Chinese developer Zhang Xin’s family and Brazilian banker Moise Safra bought a 40 percent stake in the building for $1.4 billion, pushing its total valuation to $3.4 billion and making it the most valuable office asset in the country.