Sydney and Melbourne are among the 10 most favourable investment locations in the Asia-Pacific region for next year, a survey finds.

The findings are revealed in a PricewaterhouseCoopers and Urban Land Institute report, Emerging Trends in Real Estate, Asia-Pacific, which paints an optimistic picture of the Australian and Asian property markets in the year ahead.

Property companies had so far avoided the fire-sale scenario predicted earlier, with distressed asset sales in the region less than a quarter of the $US136 billion ($147bn) reported across the Americas in the second half of the 2008-09 financial year.

'Australian and Asian property markets have seemingly dodged a bullet', PWC partner James Dunning said. The outlook was now cautiously optimistic.

The Australian