In many respects, Western Europe most closely replicates the slowly recovering US market. As Nigel Roberts, head of European research for Jones Lang LaSalle, indicated in a press meeting, against a backdrop of low interest rates and generally poor market fundamentals, office rents should bottom out in 2004, by as much as 10%. By the end of the year a slow uptick in demand will begin to reverse that trend. The most obvious exceptions to this downward track will be London, Moscow and Brussels, he noted. But it will not until 2006 that the full impact of a continent-wide recovery will be felt. Eastern Europe generally performed stronger than the Western sector over the past few years and is better positioned to benefit from the upturn.

According to JLL figures, gross returns on office real estate, flat in 2001 through '03, should pick up by 5% through 2007. Eastern countries, meanwhile, posted 12% gross returns and are on target for 13.5% gains through '07.

Gross rents in the West should rise by only 2% after this year's bottoming out and continue an upward trend to 9.5% by '07. Again, the East outshines, with a 15% gain in '04 and a 15% rise by 2007.

Turning to Asia, China and India will be the hot prospects for the foreseeable future, according to C. Nicholas Brooke, president of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, at a press conference held by Society of Industrial and Office Realtors.Says Brooke, Hong Kong office rents are currently up 25% as the manufacturing sector continues to give way to services. This economic shift is helping to sustain a 6% GDP growth.

Fueling Hong Kong's expansion is Mainland China's 7%-to-8% GDP gain and the prospect of such boosts as playing host to the 2008 Olympics. India, he added, with its 7% GDP hike, will be the "next driver of growth" in the region. Rents there, he says, have been constant.

Not surprisingly, Japan has proven to be a slower to respond economy, with rents dropping 30% since 1991.