Cramer: The State of the Market, Part II

This is the second of a four-part series on the market we find ourselves in as we wind down 2009. Here's the first part. The series originally appeared Tuesday on RealMoney. Click here for a free trial, and enjoy incisive commentary all day, every day.

Be sure to check back all day for the remaining installments.

Group 2: Commercial real estate plays. If there were one particular Achilles' heel of the bulls (amid a centipede-like group of Achilles' heels), it's commercial real estate. This issue is the stuff of endless articles and discussions, from the preternaturally-given-to-thermonuclear-war-against-stocks Gretchen Morgenson to our own jeremiad sounders -- too numerous to mention -- on RealMoney. So I struggle with what to make of the action in the real estate investment trusts if things are going so awry in offices, malls and apartments, the troika of pain that is supposed to cause the next wave of collapsing banks.

The riptide should be carrying the following in its undertow: Avalon Bay (AVB Quote), Equity Residential (EQR Quote) and UDR (UDR Quote) in apartments; Simon Properties (SPG Quote), Federal Reality (FRT Quote) and Developers Diversified (DDR Quote) in malls; Boston Properties (BXP Quote), Vornado (VNO Quote) and Brandywine (BDN Quote) in office properties; as well as real estate broker CB Richard Ellis (CBG Quote). A look at each of the companies' Web sites, though, paints a thoroughly positive picture.

It is true that the real estate industry is pretty unrestrained when it comes to hype, but even the worst players in the worst markets -- like DDR and EQR with huge exposure to California -- seem to be very filled with tenants, and the best (Simon and Federal Realty) are doing quite well. Federal Realty, a serial dividend raiser led by Don Wood, just boosted its dividend.

Federal Realty (FRT)

If you participated in Brandywine or Boston Properties' secondaries you had some pretty good percentage hits. CB Richard Ellis recently gave an interview to The New York Times talking about how business has started to turn up -- I know, I know, hype factor, but let's give them their due, as they have been through the wars and presented plenty of evidence of winning.

CB Richard Ellis (CBG)

Vornado's doing a second offering of a new company, arguably capping its upside, and there's talk now and then of trouble at the firm, but if there is so much trouble, what are they looking at new opportunities for?

Vornado (VNO)