"At other times in the past when we've had a slowdown in the overall general economy, real estate has historically been overbuilt and therefore has not represented at that moment in time a particularly attractive alternative investment option for people who want to move money out of the stock market," Lauman tells GlobeSt. "What we have in our economy today is significantly different; commercial real estate is very healthy. It continues to be a landlord's market and the vacancies continue to remain relatively low."

In other words, we are not overbuilt this time around, says Lauman, which means real estate represents a very safe and viable investment alternative to the stock market. "You combine good fundamental real estate market conditions with very low interest rates—commercial mortgages are running 7.25% to 7.5% today—and the net result is I think is continuing low cap rates and steady investor demand," says Lauman. "As things stand now, I think it represents a safe and profitable haven from the stock market."

Wholeheartedly in agreement is Dan O'Conner, managing editor of the San Francisco-based National Real Estate Index, which provides data and analysis for Chase Manhattan, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and the Federal Reserve, just to name a few. O'Conner says the market volatility may influence investors to move back to those sectors that have typically not seen the same degree of volatility, like publicly traded real estate securities.