The survey of ULI attendees covers all five primary commercial sectors—retail, office, multifamily, industrial and hotels. Less than a third of respondents indicated that they plan to reduce investment spending through the last six months of 2009.

"Our capital markets teams in the primary international markets are reporting increasingly positive signs that pricing floors are being reached, with a corresponding uptick in transaction volumes," Michael Zietsman, managing director of JLL's Capital Markets Group, said in releasing the survey results. "This should bode well for the United States where the bid/ask gap still remains wide.

"Buyers have set pricing levels that are unappealing to most sellers, but it's only a question of time before sellers move down and buyers move up to create a more efficient market," Zietsman continued. "We've seen this in the London market and I suspect that we are six to eight months behind."