Zell's comments were echoed by Equity Office REIT's top brass at an analyst's conference held in Boston last Wednesday. Equity Office president Tim Callahan and other top officials stressed a number of specific initiatives to build organizational value at Equity Office, in which Zell is the largest shareholder.

Analysts came away impressed that Equity Office wants to move away from being just a collection of assets toward building dynamism as an organization. That didn't help Equity Office's stock price though, which barely budged after the company's high-powered Boston PR effort and continues to trade at an FFO discount to other large capitalization REITS. This discount exists despite Equity Office's efforts at boosting margins, which Zell says have jumped sharply since Equity Office went public three years ago.

Zell sees few problems ahead for the real estate business, which he says has not indulged in the massive overbuilding that has characterized the business in the past. He attributed this to greater discipline on the part of lenders, who are vastly more skeptical of real estate than in the past. He says, however, that the same over-investment that used to occur in real estate is currently going on with technology, which he believes will have dramatically negative consequences for the economy in coming years.