The city's combination of strong technology and tourism sectorswill ensure that San Francisco will continue to be an attractiveplace to live and to do business, the speakers pointed out, meaningthat the Bay Area is uniquely positioned to recover from theeconomic downturn faster than other parts of the country. SanFrancisco "has really dodged the bullet so far in terms of thehousing market-driven downturn in the rest of the state," said TedEgan, a chief economist with the City and County of San Francisco,who pointed out that some economic indicators--such asunemployment--have nonetheless showed signs of weakeninglately.

Presentations by Egan and Michael Cohen, director of the SanFrancisco Office of Economic and Work Force Development, kicked offthe RealShare conference, which included presentations and panelson the full spectrum of commercial real estateconcerns−from brokerage and development to financing andthe outlook for investments in all property sectors. The RealShareevent drew nearly 300 registrants to the venue at the HyattRegency. Daniel Ceniceros, vice president of regional publicationsfor Incisive Media, tells GlobeSt.com that attendance was up thisyearcontinuing the trend of higher attendance at allRealShare events in 2008.

Egan said that San Francisco's unemployment rate has risen to5.9%, up one percentage point from a year ago, but he added: "Wethink that is because of unemployed people from elsewhere in thestate moving to San Francico because we have a pretty healthyeconomy and they are looking for jobs here." According to Egan, SanFrancisco enjoys a very positive long-term outlook with respect toreal estate. "There really is no city in the US that is betterpositioned for the long-term than San Francisco," he said. "Ourincomes are high and will remain so; Our consumer credit quality isexcellent, we have been underbuilding housing for decades and weare relatively insulated from the long-term housing prices decline.We can debate how much the San Francisco housing prices are goingto correct, but for the long term, San Francisco is a goodinvestment."