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NEW YORK CITY-"It's hard to be confident right now," Eastdil Secured's Douglas Harmon acknowledged in a one-on-one "Up Close" discussion with Incisive Media's editorial director, John Salustri, at Thursday's RealShare New York conference. Harmon, senior managing director at Eastdil, said getting deals done requires considerably more work in the current climate, and a big part of that additional effort entails adjusting sellers' expectations. However, like other panelists at the daylong conference, Harmon saw opportunities for people who know how to manage them.

During his onstage conversation with Salustri, Harmon broke the news that Eastdil is now taking bids on the office portion of 660 Madison Ave., which Risanamento SpA bought last year for $375 million and is now looking to sell. He said the Italian firm expressed concerns about whether it would be able to get last year's purchase price in a sale, let alone make a profit on it.

With a 2008 track record that has included marketing the components of the $7-billion EOP/Deutsche Bank/Macklowe portfolio, Harmon was in a position to point out the then-and-now differences in the market. Macklowe Properties had put up $50 million of its own money to acquire the EOP portfolio in early 2007; today, said Harmon, "If you were doing a $100-mlllion deal, you'd still have to put in $50 million." The heavy leveraging seen two years ago, now gone, was "like steroids."