MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA-The Hong Kong market is currently the strongest in the Asia-Pacific, while Japan is the most sluggish, according to Heitman LLC’s lead region portfolio manager John White. He was appointed by the company recently to oversee the firms real estate securities business, and is based here.

White is working collaboratively with Chicago-based Tim Pire, who leads the company’s North American portfolio management team, and London-based Mark Abramson, lead portfolio manager in Europe. White was formerly co-head of real estate securities for the Challenger Financial Services Group. “John has worked alongside our portfolio management teams over the past several years as part of an alliance,” said Maury Tognarelli, CEO, in a statement.

In an interview, White tells GlobeSt.com that while the US and international investment has shied away from Asia recently, fearing a bubble, he’s still positive on the region. “I think there’s an arm wrestle going on between people who see a double-dip recession coming, and those who just see flat growth for now. It’s quite natural for investment to pull out of growth markets when the economic outlook is dicey. This has manifested itself in pricing throughout Asia. But I think we’ll see in a year or so the upside of this region.”

He says his rankings of the region would put Hong Kong as a solid buy. “They’ve been forced to keep interest rates low, and you’re seeing a pretty sustained recover in residential, office and retail prices,” White says.

China is a close second, he says, as the government is working hard to stabilize the growth rate. “There are two camps, those that think that China is imbalanced and those that don’t. There are concerns with capacity issues, wages and infrastructure spending,” White says.

Australia and Singapore are also doing well, he says, with Singapore’s GDP at a “crazy” number near 18% but hard-to-find value, and Australia raising interest rates. White terms Japan as “sluggish,” with supply still coming online from the boom a few years ago.

“The next legs of growth will be the issuance of IPOs or follow-on offerings,” White says. “We are seeing some come out of Malaysia. There’s a few lined up in Australia, but the pricing just isn’t there for it to happen this year.”