Real Estate Florida: As head of C&W's South Florida operations, you know better than most what this market is going through. Which sectors are currently affected by the economic downturn and the residential crisis, and in what way?

Blanca: I think all commercial sectors have been affected, some more than others. The financial credit markets started impacting investment sales during the latter part of last year, and this credit crisis in the capital markets has continued throughout this year. Until there is more alignment between sellers and buyers in terms of value expectations, and until the credit side of the business opens up, we won't recover the vibrant activity that we experienced in past years.

What has happened is that we are going through a very organized process of de-leveraging. That had to happen because real estate was never meant to be over-leveraged. The time of the highly leveraged player in real estate is gone.