Of course, a few deals and a couple of conversations don't a recovery make, and the people we spoke with for this story, while glad for the apparent halt in the downward spiral, all predict that we will be stuck bouncing along the bottom for at least a few months before what can be called a recovery is evident. And the key word there is "bounce," indicating slight periods of both up-ness and down-ness with neither forecasting a major change in direction.

"We may have seen the bottom of the market," Michael Fascitelli, president of Vornado Realty Trust, told a recent gathering of the Institute of Real Estate Management. But he stopped short of predicting cloudless skies ahead. "We're still in for a tough couple of years. Until we get job growth back and a dwindling of sublease space, we won't see rent rising."

Other local players agree with Fascitelli on both points. "We won't see rents rise Downtown for at least another 12 months," says Bob Alexander, who was named president of Insignia/ESG just prior to the proposed merger between his company and CB Richard Ellis. Midtown could take the same timeframe because, while it is stabilizing, we're not exactly sensing a huge demand that's going to create an uptick in basic rentals." Midtown demand, he explains, is "reasonable, but not super strong."