NEW YORK CITY-So how much, really, does the commercial real estate industry need to worry when Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke ultimately pulls the trigger on the unwinding of quantitative easing? On a macro basis, as we reported on Monday, the economic recovery, which has never exceeded a snail's pace, will continue on its tip-toe path, Fannie Mae predicting a slight slowing in the rate of recovery from 2.3% down to 2%.

We also reported that REITs might feel the pinch if investors decide to clear out for vehicles offering higher returns. But we've turned to veterans whose job it is to read the tea leaves and work on those predictions, and their projections carry the same message: There's little to worry about. On the next few pages, you'll hear from experts at Avison Young, CBRE and Trepp:

“I've been predicting for two to three years that, in terms of interest rates, there was only one way to go,” Mark Rose, chairman and CEO of Avison Young, tells GlobeSt.com. He also said that when that time came, “most everyone would not be ready.”

Rose is betting that the impact of an interest-rate rise, whatever the cause, won't be felt until next year. “Even if there is tapering, I don't think it will be felt,” he says, “not until the first or the second quarter of next year. This is a 2014 event.”

But what will it mean to the commercial real estate industry? He points to the rate fluctuation of about a month ago: “You already have your answer. It slowed deals. There were things we were working on where discussions arose that lengthened the negotiations.” Acquisitions and financings will feel similar pangs, he projects. “It will slow the market.”

But a rate hike, whenever it happens will be neither final nor fatal. “It will work its way through the system,” he says. “It may kill some deals, but it will still be more short-term than long term because we have a pretty fluid market.”

Rose advocates that firms map out their five-year planning needs “to take into account such short-term hits. It will change your underwriting.

“This is a pretty simple industry,” he tells GlobeSt.com. “What we do is based on math and projected math, and if you're going to change one of the variables you have to re-evaluate. Depending on what your criteria are and your flexibility within that criteria, it's either an issue or a non-issue. No one should look at it any other way than that.”

The folks of CBRE Econometric Advisors recently released a white paper on the subject. We quote from that report, and one of its authors, group managing director Jon Southard:

“The Federal Reserve's Quantitative Easing program, likely to be scaled down in the next 12 to 18 months, will continue to exert a stabilizing effect on capitalization rates during that period. Continuing improvement in credit availability will be another stabilizing factor (with credit, as of the end of 2012, already recovering at a higher rate than anticipated, as represented by the Federal Reserve's Flow of Funds data).

“As a result, while we expect some upward adjustment (in response to the pullback in bond pricing and the attendant increases in interest rates), capitalization rates will stay relatively flat over the next two years. In markets with strong fundamentals, we expect cap rates to stay flat for longer periods. However, with interest rates expected to start mean-reverting at a faster clip, cap rates will also trend up higher, two years out—tapering off some 70 bps to 113 bps higher than 2013Q1 levels.

"This upward adjustment will start to manifest itself around the end of 2014. That said, the spreads of capitalization rates over Treasury bond yields will compress from current levels, driven by further improvement in economic conditions and the continued attractiveness of commercial real estate.

“In summary, we expect CRE to continue to offer stable performance. That said, value growth (i.e. appreciation returns) is expected to slow down considerably—or even disappear temporarily in the case of industrial and retail—during the next two to three years. Capitalization rates will remain stable but are expected to start adjusting upwards if the Fed begins to unwind its QE program this year. At first, such upward adjustment will be moderate, but will later accelerate in response to expected increases in interest rates.

That said, measured as a spread to Treasury yields, cap rates will post moderate increases, with the spreads actually compressing from today's high levels. In line with cap rates, income returns are also expected to stay relatively stable over this period. In the longer term, we forecast the recovery to gather steam three to five years out, with the attendant improvements in CRE performance.”

Trepp's senior research director, Susan Persin, tells GlobeSt.com where short-term rates will go based on the futures market's estimates of the Fed Fund Rate, which she puts at 0.090%, during the next year.

“Our analysis shows that the market assigns a 13% likelihood that the short-term rate will rise by up to 25 basis points by November or December,” she projects. “The markets are pricing in a 26% likelihood that the Fed Funds rate will climb by at least 25 basis points by July 2014.”

So Persin says to expect short-term rates to stay relatively stable, “which is consistent with Bernanke's comments during the past month about monitoring and reacting to the market's response to higher rates. However, I will note that the expectation is also for higher rates a year from now.” Still, even the higher rates are low by historical standards.

“A similar analysis of longer-term interest rates indicates that the market is pricing in future increases in rates, albeit not as dramatic as the 75-basis-point increase we've seen over the past three months,” says Persin. Bond-market pricing indicates that the 10-year T-bond rate, currently at about 2.5%, could top 3% by 2016.” But that, she concludes, is a relatively modest increase over the next three years.