Rather than being do-it-yourselfers, O'Hanlon recalls, Citibank and other lenders relied on local brokers to dispose of most of their foreclosed properties. "It's a mistake for banks to think that they could do it themselves," O'Hanlon tells GlobeSt.com Southwest Bureau Chief Connie Gore.

Other real estate professionals banks might have second thoughts if they indeed enter the real estate industry assuming a proposal by the Federal Reserve Board and the US Treasury allowing banks to enter brokerage goes through.

"There's no way a bank could service a client the way we do," says says Joyce M. Slone, a director for Rosemont, IL-based Cushman & Wakefield and president of the Chicago Chapter of the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors. "I think a broker today gives so much in value-added services. I don't think the bank is equipped to do that." Cousins Stone Austin Development senior vice president Tim Hendricks agrees, telling Gore: "The complexity of the issues and the speed that's needed ... banks aren't set up to react as quickly as you have to react in this industry. I can't imagine it fitting well with the overall banking industry."

If the downward spiral of the equities markets doesn't spark a history lesson, Grubb & Ellis president Raymond T. O'Keefe, CRE, doesn't hesitate to turn the calendar back to 1929. Before passage of the Glass Steagall Banking Act in 1933, banks had spread themselves too thin in unrelated industries, including selling securities, O'Keefe reminds Northeast Bureau Chief Amy Vaughn. "It's part of the reason we had the crash in 1929," he adds.

Admittedly, the real estate industry has a vested interest in opposing banks from entering the brokerage end of the business. The National Association of Realtors has organized opposition to the proposal. "I'd be worried if I worked in residential, because it makes a tremendous amount of sense," Tom Miller, national managing director for Jones Lang LaSalle, tells West Coast/South Bureau Chief Patricia Kirk. The disconcerting reality, he adds, is the banks already have lending and appraisals capabilities in place.

Commercial real estate would likely be another story, Miller says. "The commercial market is more dependent on a specific skill set than is residential," he says. "These are team-oriented kinds of services, with strategic value-added benefits over just doing a deal. To compete, banks would have to develop teams with those skill sets."

And perhaps patience, Slone says. "A build-to-suit can take two years, from the time the client finds a property after looking at 12 to 15 properties, the broker negotiates with two or three builders, and then here (in Chicago), you're working around the weather. I can't imagine a bank would have that amount of time."

David J. Patten, an associate with Winter Park, FL-based Interlachen Financial Group, tells GlobeSt.com Southeast Bureau Editor Alex Finkelstein he wonders the role banks would try to play in commercial real estate besides brokerage. "If it's development, the (unanswered) question is, are they going to build investment property portfolios and function like insurance companies, pension funds, REITs or merchant builders?" Patten says. "If they do, then it probably won't affect the mortgage banking industry anymore than the REITs have already done."

And if so, it may not register more than a ho-hum. As Joseph D. Stecher, portfolio manager for Real Estate and Alternative Investments at General Motors Asset Management Corp., tells Vaughn, "Who cares?"