Investors continue to have confidence in market.

Findings of the third-annual Bryan Cave Real Estate Executives' Forecast Survey show that nearly two-thirds (63%) of real estate professionals surveyed believe the United States real estate market will strengthen (16%) or stay the same (47%) within the next 12 months, compared with 35% who believe the market will weaken.

The study, conducted among professionals involved in real estate from across the country, demonstrates that, contrary to recent news reports portraying a grim outlook for the real estate market, a majority of those in the industry remain reasonably optimistic.

"The survey reveals that most real estate professionals have faith in the real estate market, contradicting recent news coverage suggestions that the real estate market is likely to falter," said William B. Tate II, a partner in Bryan Cave's Real Estate Group.

"The market may not be continuing to grow as rapidly it has in recent years, but investors feel real estate is still a solid investment. We believe the survey suggests that real estate professionals have another reason to be optimistic; they can diversify their investments and minimize risk by expanding their investments abroad."

Sixty-one percent of real estate executives have plans to invest in land outside the United States within the next 12 months, despite of threats of terrorism, pandemic virus and continuing military conflict in certain parts of the world.

Respondents expressed the greatest interest in investing in one of two countries: Mexico (15%) and China (15%). Other countries to top the list include the United Kingdom (12%), Canada (8%), and Japan (8%).

In addition, the survey also found that when asked in which United States region they would invest, 32% said the northeast, 18% chose the Pacific Coast, and 15% mentioned the southwest. Real estate respondents were particularly interested in investing in metropolitan office buildings (17%) and metropolitan and suburban multifamily high rise residential buildings (13%).

The Bryan Cave Real Estate Executives' Forecast Survey was conducted among 343 real estate professionals including brokers, lenders, commercial mortgage bankers, title insurers, contractors, investors, engineers etc. at a variety of companies like public and private real estate companies, real estate services, commercial banks, opportunity and investment funds, investment banks, law firms etc.

This survey is based on voluntary opt-in online interviews generated from an email invitation from Bryan Cave conducted by Opinionsite Inc. between March 15 and March 27, 2006. The survey was designed, supervised and analyzed by ICR in Media, PA.

The survey had a total sample of 343 respondents; 319 respondents currently worked in Real Estate and 24 respondents did not. Such a sample size has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.3 percent at the 95 percent confidence level.