It leaves companies having to make each part of their business count as shareholder value becomes crucial to survival. Measuring the company using EVA models is one method that highlights the inefficiencies of property at present. "If you can't achieve a greater or same level of returns from property than equity then you are destroying value," says Kavanagh. "Corporates have to do something to get the capital back to work. They have to be financial managers of real estate assets."

The other side to the spin-off equation has also been put in place relatively recently - the money to buy the property. "Ten years ago, there wasn't really the capital," says Blaxland.

Much of this could be money that was raised to buy assets when the European markets were depressed but will instead be redirected.

Robin Priest, managing director of Mapeley, expects the money used to be mainly private. "My view is that it will be private capital as it is a new market. It is a whole segment in formation and it has got to sort itself out," says Priest.

Others, including Tony Edgley, international director at Jones Lang LaSalle, also see the changing European pension fund system having an input. "There is $15m of available capital hovering over Europe and that's an awful lot of real estate. And that's before you start thinking about pension reform and capital getting allocated to real estate. You could actually see a shift in ownership with European pension fund companies playing a major role."

The final strand to the trend is the property markets' move towards outsourcing and flexibility, again driven by globalisation. "The pace of change is much more rapid today. Space needs are different and it might be difficult to move through this change. It might be easier to outsource," says Blaxland. The speed also increases the pace of obsolescence of buildings.