Oddly enough, when asked if they've noticed a decline in sales and leasing, 88.5% of respondents said no while a paltry 11.5% admitted to it. A classic case of false bravado? Perhaps.

"That's strange," observes Jacques Gordon, international director of investment strategy and research for LaSalle Investment Management in Chicago. "False bravado might be the only explanation, unless a bulk of the respondents were from areas like New York City, which didn't experience that severe a decline. But from a researcher's perspective, the statistics all clearly show a huge drop-off in leasing and a substantial drop-off in sales."

Respondents took a more realistic view when enumerating the other causes of the slump, and 12% of the survey's participants blamed job cutbacks and the inability of corporate America to implement real estate growth strategies. As many respondents blamed real estate pricing. This, presumably, is a reference to budgetary constraints more than inflexibility on the part of the brokerage community. (In fact, a prior Quick Survey revealed that brokers are more than willing to negotiate and that concessions were on the rise. Click on: Quick Survey: Concessions Are Back )