"At other times in the past when we've had a slowdown in the overall general economy, real estate has historically been overbuilt and therefore has not represented at that moment in time a particularly attractive alternative investment option for people who want to move money out of the stock market," Lauman tells GlobeSt. "What we have in our economy today is significantly different; commercial real estate is very healthy. It continues to be a landlord's market and the vacancies continue to remain relatively low."

In other words, we are not overbuilt this time around, says Lauman, which means real estate represents a very safe and viable investment alternative to the stock market. "You combine good fundamental real estate market conditions with very low interest rates—commercial mortgages are running 7.25% to 7.5% today—and the net result is I think is continuing low cap rates and steady investor demand," says Lauman. "As things stand now, I think it represents a safe and profitable haven from the stock market."

Wholeheartedly in agreement is Dan O'Conner, managing editor of the San Francisco-based National Real Estate Index, which provides data and analysis for Chase Manhattan, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and the Federal Reserve, just to name a few. O'Conner says the market volatility may influence investors to move back to those sectors that have typically not seen the same degree of volatility, like publicly traded real estate securities.

"Real estate is part of the economy and therefore is not completely insulated, but at least this time real estate is better cushioned than the early 1990s," says O'Conner. "If the economy remains in the doldrums it will begin to impact the performance of real estate, but right now its one of the best defensive holdings you could think of because its returns are not well correlated to the broader market."

Indeed, says O'Conner, an as yet unofficial internal analysis looking at REIT performance over the last five years has found that when you factor in the reinvestment of dividends, their performance is not dramatically different than the broader market, it's just occurred at different times. "In light of those facts, real estate can provide an attractive and more defensive play," says O'Conner. "The one caveat is that if the economic downturn last more than 12 weeks, real estate will no longer be insulated from its effects."