Eight per cent expect commercial property values to "increase significantly" while 17% expect a "slight decrease" in property values. A mere 4% expect a "significant decrease" in property values over the next three years.

Some 33% of respondents expect the Dublin office sector to out-perform other sectors of the Irish commercial property market over the next three years, while 27% are confident that the Dublin retail sector will see the best growth.

Forty-five per cent expect expect residential property prices to "increase slightly" over the next three years, while 15% expect prices to remain at current levels.

According to the survey, commercial property is still the most popular investment among Irish chief executives, with 53% identifying property as their number one choice.

However, compared to last year, 41% of Irish chief executives identified equities as their number one choice.

Considering the slight easing in activity in the Irish residential property market, it is not surprising that 14% of respondents listed Irish residential property as their favoured investment vehicle compared to 23% a year ago.

Meanwhile, 11% of respondents identified residential property in the UK/Europe as being their preferred choice, compared to 15% last year. Interestingly 16% of chief executives identified commercial property in the UK/Europe as their favoured investment.

Despite five interest rate hikes to date in 2006, 85% of Irish CEO's expect interest rates to rise only slightly next year. It is interesting that only 12% of the top 1,000 CEO's expect interest rates to rise significantly next year. According to Marie Hunt, director of research at CB Richard Ellis the results are particularly interesting. "It is noteworthy that 85% of Irish chief executives believe that we are only going to see a slight increase in interest rates in 2007.

"Against this backdrop, the fact that many of these business leaders are less bullish about economic and property market performance in the short to medium-term is surprising, considering that the fundamentals of both the Irish economy and the Irish property market remain very favourable."