Despite the continuing credit crunch and the settling back of commercial property asset values in many sectors and regions, high-quality buildings with creditworthy occupiers and prudent debt levels remain safe, income-generating repositories of capital amidst the gyrating values of other investment alternatives.

The many new varieties of pooled real estate investment vehicles open to investors along with the globalisation of real estate capital flows have aided this resilience by moving this historically illiquid sector further into the mainstream of capital markets, boosting the importance of real estate in most large portfolios and asset allocation strategies.

Within the alternative asset sector, real estate maintains particular respect for the stability of long-term values at the underlying property level in comparison with hedge funds, corporate private equity, commodities and others in this grouping, albeit that many of the