Manhattan's not for sale.

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For the time being at least, all that much talked about money crowding on that metaphorical sideline in wait of distressed assets will have to keep waiting.

At a breakfast in midtown hosted by the Appraisal Institute, real estate executives highlighted the ongoing lack of buying opportunities.

Mary Ann Tighe, the newly appointed chairwoman of REBNY and the New York area chief executive of the real estate services firm CB Richard Ellis, said that her company recently had to distribute notice discouraging the deluge of solicitations they receive from intermediaries with foreign investors in hand eager to buy into Manhattan.

"Stop sending us emails," Tighe said before adding: "If you have someone who wants to sell, then by all means."

While leasing in the city has begun to rebound slightly from a dismal level of activity earlier in the year, the investment sales market has remained at a near standstill leaving brokers with little product to sell.

David Arena, the New York area executive of the firm Grubb & Ellis, described 2009 as "a violent year" for brokerage firms.

"Any business that has declined 82% in a year is usually not in business anymore," he said.

Although real estate prices have fallen precipitously from peaks achieved before the credit crunch, the problems haven't translated yet into a sweeping wave of defaults because even many troubled deals remain afloat on interest reserves and reluctance among lenders to foreclose or sell their loans at a steep loss.

And although the rental market has fallen, many buildings in Manhattan still generate enough cash flow through in place leases, experts say, to service their debt, prompting many lenders to extend loans for a year or more so that the market can begin to recover.

Most still feel that lenders will only be able to hold out for so long.

Arena predicted the leasing market could return to last year's peaks by the middle of the next decade, 2014 or 2015 he said.

But before then, most experts feel that rental rates will remain in a rut for the next few years and that many buildings' rent rolls will deteriorate as leases expire and are replaced with less lucrative deals or, even worse, vacancy.

Peter Riguardi, New York chief of Jones Lang LaSalle who also spoke at the breakfast, said that the biggest driver of leasing in the city, the financial sector, had fundamentally re-sized to occupy a smaller footprint. He said that its reduction may even continue as these firms export back office departments and other personnel to cheaper spaces outside of the city.

"New York is an expensive place to do business," Riguardi said. "Financial services has scaled down ... changed how it deploys labor. Support and staff that are here now won't be here in a few years."

Foreign investors have become a hoped for source of capital when the levee of bad deals does break.

Bob Knakal, cofounder of the sales brokerage firm Massey Knakal, estimated that between $1.5 trillion and $2.5 trillion worth of mortgages will expire in the U.S. by 2013.

The amount is so gargantuan, Knakal said, it far exceeds the capacity of the post-CMBS lending market of today, which has been left largely to banks and insurance companies.

Bruce Mosler, the chief executive officer of Cushman & Wakefield, said that overseas buyers are attracted by Manhattan's "extremely attractive governance" and view it as a "safe haven" and one of the world's central commercial and cultural hubs. For them, market downturns are the rare windows when they can afford to buy in, helped by the fact that the discounts are amplified by virtue of the fact that many foreign currencies are stronger than the dollar. "They see returns here right now on par with emerging markets," Mosler said.

As Tighe's email ban would suggest, foreign interest in Manhattan hasn't needed prodding.

Foreign purchasers recently scooped up 485 Lexington Avenue from SL Green and two buildings in Lower Manhattan that were offered for sale by AIG. Joseph Cayre is said to be in talks to acquire 452 Filth Avenue from the bank HSBC on behalf of Middle Eastern investors.

Foreign buyers appear to be part of the "fabric of our real estate economy here," noted Woody Heller, an investment sales broker at the firm Studley, harkening back to the wave of Japanese buyers during the last sharp market downturn in the early 1990s.

Still, in their exuberance to snatch bargains, many overlook hurdles that, as outsiders to the Manhattan market, they are perhaps unfamiliar with.

Mary Ann Tighe suggested that there can be a bias against remote ownership if it compromises the level of service and responsiveness that Manhattan tenants, particularly high paying ones, are used to.

Mentioning 660 Madison Avenue, a high-end office building in the Plaza District owned by the Italian real estate concern the Zunino Group, Tighe said that it was "troublesome for a tenant when somewhere out there, there is a decision maker but they can't get to them."

It wasn't a knock against overseas buyers. Building owners not based in New York could suffer from the same problems.

"That was why Equity Office Properties always took a discount in my opinion," Tighe said, referencing the Chicago based real estate trust that in 2007 was acquired by the Blackstone Group in a record real estate deal. "Because they had to call Chicago every time they had to make a decision" and "never got the rhythm of the city's market."

"I agree 1000 percent with Mary Ann," Riguardi said. "Investors aren't understanding the capital investment landlords have to make and that to do well they will need to fund big tenant incentives."

Tighe said that although the leasing market was picking up, buildings where the landlord had invested capital to outfit vacancies with pristine office installations or spaces that had high quality existing facilities from a previous tenant were the "hottest thing."