Sam Zell, real estate magnate who sold his Office Equity Partners Trust companyfor 39 Billion dollars this year is expecting real estate to continue strong till 2009. His outlook is global as he is seeing a strong outlook outside of the United States. His bets on real estate continue as he built 50,000 homes in Mexico last year.

While I do not share his optimism on the residential market I do see the commercial side continuing strongly into the future. As long as the economy continues to hold up we will continue to see domestic commercial real estate flourish.

We’ve never seen numbers as big as the numbers being bought and sold for in today’s environment,” he said.

REIT stands for real estate investment trust, a tax-beneficial structure that has surged in popularity in recent years. Zell, an early success in the field, received the Visionary Award at the ceremony.

Speaking from notes and sporting his trademark business casual attire – a corduroy jacket over a striped shirt with the top two buttons open – Zell leaned over the podium as he walked listeners through 20 years of real estate market history. He opened with an anecdote about a 1984 Texas bumper sticker: “Please, God, give us one more oil boom. We won’t screw it up this time.”

He said the real estate market might as well have printed similar stickers – and that the industry did get its hoped-for boom. And though prognosticators have suggested that the market has peaked, he said the short-term outlook remains strong. via Newsday.com.

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