Career real estate executives sound off on the crazy market.

Brokers, owners and developers are cashing in hand over fist as their internal Richter Scales work overtime trying to divine the market's next move.

Real Estate Weekly polled a few real estate executives on the state of this market in light of their experience:

"I'm doing better today than I ever could have imagined," said Ron Tardinico, sales manager for Bellmarc, who started in 1982.

"Back in 1987, we had a ton of product and little demand. Now, we have modest demand and little product," said Tardinico. He recalled advising his clients back in the 1980's that their home would be the single biggest investment that they would ever make.

"That just isn't the case anymore," said Tardinico, citing widespread investment in the stock market since the late 1980's.

Last year was a record year for Bellmarc, one of the largest residential brokerages in the city. The frenzied climate, however, does not remind Tardinico of the mid 1980's.

"It happened so fast back then," he said. "Nobody could have predicted it. But today, I think everyone is predicting that things will slow down. Slow down as opposed to stop," he said.

Peter Pattison began his real estate career in 1958 with Cushman & Wakefield. He went on to develop over 15 million SF of space as chief operating officer at Uris Building Corporation. Pattison now heads Peter Pattison Ltd, a real estate consulting firm.

"History always repeats itself. If you make the city too expensive for companies to do business here, downsizing will occur and it is occurring. I've been in this business for forty years. We used to have 250 of the Fortune 500 tenants here in Manhattan. Not anymore.

"You'll see the market soften most in several Park Avenue buildings. The only research that anyone pays attention to is the last successful building," said Pattison, adding that prospective tenants will take less space due to outrageously high asking rents."

He has one word for this market -- "phenomenal".

He cited responsible lending patterns by banks and zero speculative construction as a key differences between today's market and that of the late 1980's.

"Owners want long-term leases. This market is so tight that the landlords are drawing leases as tight as they can and making sure that their tenants have the best possible credit."

"I've been in the business since 1970 and the market has never been this strong," said Craig Lemle, corporate managing director at Julien J. Studley, the real estate brokerage.

"I see rents being fairly level. The vacancy rate might go up 8 to 10 percent and things will soften a bit. Space will be returned to the market."

He predicted that the market will continue to soften over the next three to six months, though he suggested that this isn't necessarily unhealthy.

"Real estate is a cyclical business. If there is a recession, who gets hurt? Those who have refinanced or purchased buildings recently," he said.

To David Levinson, vice chairman of Insignia/ESG, the issue is supply. "We still don't have any. The question is what will happen to demand. People will have to think about two markets -- the direct tenant market and the subleasing market. The former is very healthy."

Levinson idnetified similarities between the 1980-83 market ("It was super tight then, there was no space") and today's while noting that there is no speculative building today, unlike the early 1980's market.

"By the late 1980's there was a ton of supply and absolutely no demand," he said.

In Levinson's view, the only threat to the real estate industry is a major disruption in the economy. Even so, he believes that all a recession would do is "slow down absorption" here.