Property values in Asia may keep sliding this year as the global credit crisis and economic slowdown undermine investor confidence, according to investors and analysts.

Markets in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore have already seen large price drops since last year after years of cheap credit lures a flood of foreign money into the regions real estate, a conference in Singapore heard.

High end residential and office markets boomed but now as credit conditions have tightened and the global appetite for risk has waned there is no more speculative money around and prices are falling.

Stuart Labrooy, chief executive at real estate investment trust Axis-REIT in Kuala Lumpur, predicts that Asian property values will probably bottom by the end of the year but may not start to rise again until the economies in the US and Europe have consistent growth.

Property investors who chased hot markets last year have absorbed big losses and new buyers now shouldn’t expect to make a quick profit, according to Blake Olafson, head of the Asia real estate group for Bahrain-based investment firm Arcapita.

Singapore has seen private residential property prices fall about -20% from their peak in the second quarter last year after jumping +31% in 2007. Each Asian market may face its own particular challenges.

In Singapore, the city-state’s growing status as a regional finance and wealth management hub left it vulnerable as banks and investment firms shed workers amid the credit crisis.