(Crystal Proenza is associate editor of Real Estate Florida.)

MIAMI-An overall nervousness in the market is making retailers delay decisions and consolidate, while retail property owners are forced to offer concessions, according to expert panelists who spoke at a program hosted by Commercial Real Estate Women Miami and Commercial Industrial Association South Florida at the Hyatt in Coral Gables Tuesday. Fear is driving the market, and even healthy retailers are getting rid of 10% to 15% of their real estate portfolio, said panel moderator Carol Wyllie, executive vice president of the Miami Lakes-based Graham Companies. Panelists agreed that rough times lay ahead for the retail market in the next few years.

Paco Diaz, senior vice president with CB Richard Ellis in Miami, said the biggest change that has taken place over the last year is that we are now in a tenant-driven market. Owners are offering substantial concessions, panelists agreed, and tenants are demanding rent reductions, reduced annual escalations and improvement allowances.

"Take care of your tenants, and work with those that are deserving," Diaz advised owners. "Hang on to whoever you can until 2011, because by then it's going to be a landlord's market again." Retail developer Bill Ogden told the audience that now is the time to invest in properties to make them better, commenting that the market is moving from an era of development to an era of management.