The timing of buying Crescent Real Estate Equities by Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) was among the worst in history, and not long after paying out $6.5 billion to acquire the company, Morgan Stanley has struggled to pay for it since that time in August 2007. In response, Morgan Stanley has sold the division to Barclays Capital (LSE: BARC.L).

A division of the Morgan Stanley Real Estate unit, the company is unable to pay the $2 billion in debt due in November 2009. Already the company has taken huge value write-downs on the properties under the Crescent banner, estimated in the hundreds of millions.

Altogether, Crescent has ownership in 36 office buildings across the United States. The purpose of the acquisition of Crescent by Morgan Stanley was to place the assets of the company into a number of real estate investment funds. When the credit market soon collapsed, Morgan Stanley was stuck with the properties with the inability to pay the debt on them.

Before the deal for Crescent with Morgan Stanley, John Goff ran Crescent, and will return as chairman and chief executive offer once the deal is closed. Goff, who is the founder of Goff Capital Partners, is part of a joint venture with Barclays Capital to acquire the company from Morgan Stanley.

Barclays commercial real estate managing director Haejin Baek said in a statement, “Given his extensive knowledge of the Crescent portfolio, John is well suited to manage the company going forward.”

Some of the best buildings held by Crescent, which is based in Fort Worth, Texas, reside in Dallas, and include stakes in the Crescent complex, Fountain Place and the Trammell Crow Center; all of which are considered “high-quality, trophy office buildings.”

Even so, Crescent doesn’t have full ownership in a number of office buildings in its portfolio at this time, with many of them partially owned by other major players like JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM).

All that’s known of the deal at this time is Morgan Stanley has transferred the company to Barclay, while receiving a “full release” from any liability they have on loans connected to Crescent. It’s possible in this real estate environment that it’s all Morgan Stanley got for them.

Over 17 million square feet of office space is currently under the management of Crescent. Other Crescent holdings include hotels and residential real estate.