Experts at odds on world commercial property recovery

By Daryl Loo - Analysis

LONDON (Reuters) - Real estate industry experts are at loggerheads on which commercial property market they expect to bounce back first from the downturn first, after the global financial crisis shredded property values in most countries.

Global real estate investors -- roused by prospects of snapping up bargain assets -- were still wary of getting caught in a false rally and have been keenly watching for signs of a sustainable recovery.

The turmoil that was sparked by a collapse in risky U.S. home loans has devastated the banking system and pushed most major economies into recession, causing commercial real estate markets to suffer as values and occupancy rates fell.

At the Reuters Global Real Estate Summit this week, speakers disagreed on whether the UK, which has fallen the longest and deepest, could be first to recover, or the fast-growing economies of emerging Asia and Europe will lead the pack.

"Such a financial crisis will allow countries, which were not considered good for capital investors, to become more interesting ... the U.S. is becoming less and less important," WP Carey International's (WPC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) President, Edward LaPuma, said.

Globally, commercial buildings such as office blocks, retail malls, and industrial parks shed nearly 15 percent of their value on average last year, data from UK-based Investment Property Databank showed.

A survey of over 50 countries by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) showed commercial property values fell across all emerging markets in the last quarter of 2008, the first time this had occurred in the survey's history.

The UK's commercial property market was the first to enter recession after a five-year bubble burst in mid-2007, sending values plunging by as much as 44 percent as of last month.