Olson stressed a conventional approach to buying real estate. "We are focused on building for the long term," he said during the conference call. "We are allocating our resources to improve our tenant mix. We have capital ready to deploy [but] are patiently evaluating acquisition opportunities."

Deals for distressed properties will likely take longer than anticipated, Equity One president Thomas Caputo said. No acquisitions are expected to be announced until the end of 2009 or beginning of 2010.

"The acquisitions market continues to be extremely difficult due to the credit markets operating at a fraction of the capacity of a few years ago," Caputo said. "We are exploring various opportunities on and off the market."

There's still a wide spread between the prices buyers and sellers are seeking. Combined with scarce financing, dealmaking is limited, says Richard Moore, managing director and analyst at RBC Capital Markets who follows Equity One and other retail REITs.

"The reality is, sellers are not willing to part with properties at a price enticing to buyers," Moore says. "On top of that, if you want to buy you have to find debt. It is a tough environment to make acquisitions. We are still a few quarters away."

Many available retail centers don't meet the company's standards, Caputo says. "Most of the properties on the market today are not properties we would be interested in. Some we would not be interested in at any price," he says. "At the beginning of the year we would have said there are opportunities; now there are not. We would think opportunities will be there fairly shortly."

With no acquisitions on the horizon, Equity One plans to reduce debt. It has $192 million in financing set to expire between now and 2011.

Moore calls Equity One's second-quarter performance a mixed bag. The company's fundamentals and balance sheet remain strong, but no companies in the industry are standing out in the down economy.

"Equity's same-store NOI is down 3% and occupancies are dropping but are still more than 90%," Moore says. "That is a fairly stable quarter. In this environment, you are either bad or OK. Nobody can say 'look at me, I'm doing well.'"

Equity One executives spent the last month visiting 101 of the company's 180 properties, Olson said. They found older properties are outperforming newer ones because the older group can charge lower rental rates and boost occupancy levels.

Equity One's property management unit got a boost June 1 when it took over leasing of DIM Vastgoed's portfolio. Equity One earlier this year paid $32.8 million for a 75% stake in DIM, a REIT based in the Netherlands.