NEW YORK CITY-Real estate players across the globe face some of the same challenges no matter where they’re operating as 2011 gets under way, yet conditions on the ground can vary widely from market to market, as a panel of regional experts from Ernst & Young made clear on Thursday. Given that 2010 represented “the best year that never happened,” as global real estate leader Howard Roth put it, it’s important to get up to speed on how local conditions represent both opportunities and risks. The E&Y-sponsored “Around the World in 60 Minutes,” the latest in the GlobeSt.com webinar series, aimed to do just that.

Two of the regions represented in Thursday’s discussion, the US and Europe, are in various stages of recovery from the downturn. The third region, China, is home to real estate markets that may be “the hottest in the world,” said E&Y’s China real estate leader, Maggie Eather.

In particular, foreign investment into Chinese real estate increased 50% to $20 billion over the past year. Yet Eather pointed out that despite its enormous growth potential, China also represents a great deal of uncertainty, some of it due to government policies aimed at keeping the markets from overheating.

Ad Buisman, E&Y’s global assurance and IFRS leader, characterized Europe as “a tale of two markets.” In London and Paris, for example, cap rates of less than 5% are common. Elsewhere on the continent, markets are challenged by factors ranging from shaky local fundamentals to huge bank bailouts.

Domestically, Michael Straneva, Americas real estate transactions leader, saw plenty of reasons to be optimistic. “In real estate today, the glass is more than half full,” he said. He cited opportunities ranging from the resurgence of CMBS to an uptick in distressed acquisitions, along with threats that include rounds of job cuts from states trying to balance their budgets.

Straneva, Buisman and Eather focused on the capital markets in their respective regions, as well as charting the outlook for the year ahead. Roth moderated the hour-long event, which is available on demand through April 21 by clicking here.