John Adams, first VP at NY Community Banks, offered an answer to the question posed in the event's title, "What Are the New Rules? Lending, Banks, Assets and Your Real Estate Business." For lenders as well as those seeking credit this year, said Adams, "The new rules basically are the old rules."

Those old-is-new rules include: focusing on an asset's cash flow and going-forward expenses, a ratio of 1.2 or higher in debt service coverage, requiring the sponsor to put in equity, doing the homework about a potential customer's business circumstances and keeping deal size at a level the lender finds comfortable. "Don't put more out than you're willing to lose sleep over," Adams advised.

A comparable view of a market that's simmered down from the 2003-2006 heyday came from David Schechtman, senior director at Eastern Consolidated. "People would elbow each other out of the way and jockey for position," Schechtman recalled of the market's peak. "Those days are gone now."