Rang says that with the market entering the third year of the global economic dislocation stemming from the credit crisis, there are clear signs we are at last entering a period of stabilization. "The general expectation is that we're looking at a period of at least three to five years of slow to moderate economic growth that will be mirrored in the real estate sector, but is this really such a bad thing?" he asks. "Looking back at the peak of the market boom period in 2005 to 2007, it now seems to have been an aberration from the long-term trend - created by the availability of cheap money and the entry of new types of players into real estate."

These new entries approached investments from the perspective of financial structures, rather than from a deep understanding of underlying bricks and mortar. This profound correction is probably good for the long-term health of the sector, he adds. The increasing cost of debt, along with tougher bank capital requirements, will mean greater equity components for deals, resulting in much more moderate pricing.

In the early 1990s, the Latin American debt crisis was a 'lost decade' after the eruption of the crisis in 1982 when Mexico announced it could not honor its obligations, he says. "Several solutions were introduced to tackle the perceived problem of liquidity rather than solvency in these economies, but none succeeded as it became clear countries were not growing out of debt and, in fact, were becoming more indebted. It was only after the introduction of the Brady Plan in 1989 that Latin America found a road out of its debt crisis."