She predicts medical office will be equally in demand, in spite of regular office’s decline on a general basis, excepting a few key areas such as New York City; and the decline of land development leaves an area ripe for advantage. “Such a drop in any product in the cycle, it’s sort of like the crowd all moves to one side of the boat,” Mower explains. “You have to look to the other side and need to understand what kind of opportunity that will create.”

As for the marketplace, Mower sees positive movement in the market, but a slower version than what most companies had expected from their experiences with the RTC in the early 1990s. Employment is growing, but as she notes, “we still have an 8.8-million job problem across the country.” But, this indicates a strong multifamily market, she explains. As jobs return to the market, workers will need rooftops, but may not be able to qualify for a single-family home loan, turning former home-owners into a surge of renters. “Multifamily was the winner last year, I think it’s going to be the winner this year. That being said, in certain markets, it’s going to be a great buy and in some markets, cap rates whave already returned to record lows of ’07. So, multifamily is definitely a product category to watch and there will be some wonderful opportunities there.”

The next best thing, however, will be retail, she posits. The lack of major of compression from the big retailers and the survival of some smaller boxes helped keep retail from completely falling off a cliff and is helping the sector beat negative predictions. As jobs return and household income increases, retail will become robust again and is worth taking on the way up.

Distress and core markets are still on everyone’s minds, though. Mower points to China’s influx of money into major markets such as New York City and San Francisco and predicts that Chicago is next on the list and, eventually, Texas will attract investment dollars for its plethora of corporate presence and “well-educated, but fairly inexpensive workforce.” Meanwhile, another good two years or so awaits investment opportunities in distress, she explains. “I think you’re going to see a little bit more flexibility return on the debt side. We should see a little bit more movement, more transactions than we’ve seen historically. When you tie those pieces together, I think there’s going to be great opportunities on the buying side.”

Competition is going to continue strongly for bids, as more and more buyers adjust their view away from RTC steals and into the more realistic discounts, but much of that will be mitigated as more product hits the market as well. “You will see more offers per deal, but I think you will see pretty much even keel on offers that are realistic on their pricing,” Mower says. “We’re seeing the same players that were buying year ago still buying today and they are successful buyers because they learned quickly that they were going to pay a fair price, not an unfair price, based on the underlying fundamentals of an asset.”

Mower says that inflation is going to creep up eventually and as interest rates rise it will slow the transaction volume and pricing dramatically. However, there is only one safe bet for the future. “The long-term safe bet in real estate is the same in any market,” Mower says. “Buy what you know and understand and have the expertise to manage, lease and sell. And don’t over leverage.”