Real estate, no longer the most attractive asset class on a risk-adjusted basis, will face multiple challenges in 2009. Though return expectations are tempered and capital will be restrained, investors have not turned their backs on the asset class, at least not completely.

Value, in real estate investing, is one of the most talked about concepts. It is what investors strive for, what managers hope to deliver and what developers aim to produce. But for all the talk and interest in the subject, for all the attention directed to measuring it and assessing it, there is relatively little understanding about how value is actually created.

John Kuhl and Amy Wells, partners at law firm Cox Castle & Nicholson, answer this month’s reader’s question: “I’m an investor who has invested into a joint venture strategy that no longer works in this economic environment. What are my options for getting out?”