Winn, who holds chemistry and biology degrees from Colorado College, was a top investment broker at Grubb & Ellis Co. before joining Cushman. "Denver is still perceived as the land of opportunity," Winn says. "Nationally, we are still a Top 10 market in the country. A lot of markets have fallen off where investors want to place capital since the economic downturn began. I would submit that the perception is worse than the reality."

Investors, he says, see Denver rebounding faster than most cities. In addition to Denver, cities that investors, to varying degrees, still like include New York City, Washington, DC, Boston, San Francisco, Southern California, Chicago, Seattle and Miami. They are less enthusiastic about Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix, Dallas, Detroit and St. Louis, he contends.

Winn notes that institutional investors look at real estate the way they do investing in stocks or bonds, balancing risk and reward. The local market is suffering from over-leasing, not overbuilding as it did in the 1980s, according to Winn. Also, building owners are better capitalized and lenders are better insulated to weather the downturn than they were during the S&L crash during the 1980s and early 1990s. Spec construction also has been curtailed and low-interest rates will help protect values.