CANNES, FRANCE-Yogi Berra once talked about a restaurant that was so crowded, no one ate there anymore. Much the same could be said for US gateway cities in terms of investment destinations. If you want opportunities without the crowd, consider the places you haven't so far--and do it before the rest of the world catches on. That was the upshot of a Thursday afternoon session at MIPIM: "US Property Markets: Where Are the Opportunities?"

"Focusing on gateway cities is a hard strategy to execute," said Jeffrey Barclay of Goldman Sachs. "Second-tier cities don't have the volume of lending that first-tier markets do, but you'd be wise to buy ahead of the curve."

Peter DiCorpo of CB Richard Ellis Investors backed that thought, explaining that his shop put out "two-and-a-quarter billion dollars last year and in the first-tier cities we sometimes had 29 competitors. Think Oakland rather than San Francisco, Baltimore or Philadelphia rather than Washington, DC. The cap rates are just not as compressed."

Not all property sectors were covered in the session, but allowing for regional differences, office is a good bet, as is higher-echelon multifamily. "There's a cautionary note about multifamily," said Greg Winchester of TriMont Real Estate Advisors. "Lower quality properties have a tremendous amount of stress. That's where you'll find unemployment issues rising up."

And don't think that Green Buildings carry any extra value--not at this point in the recovery.  Asked if tenants would pay for sustainability, Graham Bond of Cornerstone Real Estate Advisors said flatly, "No. Do they want it? Yes. But I'm not sure it carries a real premium these days. "

DiCorpo agreed: "Sustainability is great." But tenants right now are searching for a different kind of healthy environment: "They want to know if we as their owner are heatlhy . . . healthy enough to provide a good TI."