"We are 'core plus' investors, and the market environment did not make our job an easy one in 2001," he says. "We remain focused on suburban office properties in quality major markets and multi-family targets in primary and secondary markets with underlying, strong potential fundamentals, positive demographics and significant barriers to entry."

In addition to the suburban office markets surrounding New York City, W&M is also targeting Washington, D.C. and Boston.

"We believe unique buying opportunities will develop in selected submarkets of those metro areas, in large part because those suburban markets are beginning to suffer and performance is becoming hard to judge," he explains.

W&M Properties released statistics on its 2001 acquisition and structured equity investment programs, which indicated that 1,203 properties were submitted to the company for consideration last year, a 38 percent decline over the previous year, and a 22 percent drop from the average number of submittals for the years 1994 through 2000.

Company officials add that the decline was across the board by property type, with office submittals down 46 percent from the year 2000, multi-family down 34 percent, and retail submittals were 43 percent lower.

Also in 2001, W&M is seeking to take advantage of the demand for mezzanine type financing working on behalf of the Wien & Malkin Strategic Capital Fund, which commits funds for periods of between two to five years.

"There is a large amount of opportunistic capital seeking to acquire or redevelop assets and exit investments that requires non-traditional financing for deal structuring," says Anthony E. Malkin, president of W&M Properties. "A market inefficiency has created a niche that we are well positioned to fill."