Not a lot of goodness and cheer in the real estate industry these days.

In the first day of our annualReuters Real Estate Summit, our first few guests were not seeing a lot of the so-called “green shoots” that other parts of the U.S. economy are supposed to be seeing.

There are still an enormous number of troubles out there — including a lack of available credit and the dire need to restructure many loans made during the go-go days of a few years ago.

While the homebuilders and their stocks have been walloped the past few years, the attention this week (so far anyway) has been on the commercial side.

When things are bad, people often choose one of two routes — 1) head down, full of despair and loathing; or 2) hoping that the worst has happened and better days are right around the corner.

For Jacques Gordon, chief strategist at LaSalle Investment Management, he’s hoping for the best, but knows there are still some major work to get done.

Gordon was one of the featured guests on the first day of the summit, which is being held this year in cities around the world, including New York, Beijing, London, Mumbai, Sydney and Kuala Lumpur.

For the audio clip of his comments, please click on the following link:

Jacques Gordon