NEW YORK CITY-As the economic recovery continues, a select group of markets--all the usual suspects--is keeping commercial real estate attractive for investors, according to a new report from Deloitte, Real Capital Analytics and the Real Estate Research Corp.

“Expectations & Market Realities in Real Estate 2011: Balancing Risk and Return in An Era of Uncertainty,” charts what risk investors are willing to take, and where. This was the first year that all three groups pooled their resources to create the report, according to Matthew Kimmel, principal and US real estate services leader for Deloitte Financial Advisory Services. A spokeswoman for RERC confirms that the first edition of the report was issued in 2004.

Not surprisingly, multifamily has proven to be the most enticing, particularly for risk-averse investors. “The multifamily or apartment property market really does provide the greatest amount of upside at the moment and there are several reasons for that,” Kimmel tells GlobeSt.com. Those reasons, Kimmel says, include a record low of new product entering the marketplace in addition to sluggish job growth. “The underwriting standards by the lenders has caused those people who could enter the single family housing market before to not be able to do so now,” he says. “So now their alternative is to turn toward multifamily and apartments.”