He noted that $33 billion of CMBS will roll in 2009, and the rollover rate will rise to $55 billion per year by 2012. A lot of that cannot be refinanced at the current rate. Webb pointed out that CMBS issuance has fallen off a cliff, dropping from $230.2 billion in 2007 to $12.1 billion YTD. Nor has there been a vehicle to replace CMBS, although experts from both companies predicted there will be one eventually, probably in a different form.

However, speakers at both briefings offered reasons to be optimistic. David Arena, president of Grubb & Ellis' New York region, subtitled his PowerPoint presentation "It's Not the Apocalypse." By comparison to the 1969 through 1974 and 1987 through 1993 down cycles--which Arena sees as most similar to the current one--this downturn will be shorter-lived, Arena said. The reason is a lack of overbuilding.

And while Bach noted that office as well as retail will see upturns in vacancy, Grubb's managing director of healthcare properties, Danny Prosky, offered medical office space as a bright spot. Nationally, sales transactions of medical office properties have declined, although not as severely as in other sectors. The leasing market, though, is another matter: there's little vacancy and relatively little opportunity to convert other office space to medical use, due to the expense involved.

Distressed sales will also present opportunities to opportunistic investors. Webb noted that Colliers officially launched its distressed assets group a month ago, and has already taken on six million square feet of distressed office and industrial assets in the Southeast and Midwest. Property sectors in the Northeast tend to be more resilient, and Colliers therefore expects to see fewer distressed assets go on the market in this region.