2008 — RIP.

That's the prevailing sentiment as area business, real estate and financial experts look forward to 2009.

All are hopeful that last year was as bad as it's going to get, and that this year the economy will improve, even if only slightly.

"Think October for the economy to rebound," said Bill Ryan of Ryan Financial Services of Andover, adding that the stock market "is ahead of that."

"The stock market is poised for recovery in March," he said.

Joe Bevilacqua, executive director of the Merrimack Valley Chamber of Commerce, said he, too, is hopeful for a late 2009 economic recovery.

"Right now, there's no confidence in the economy. That's the biggest issue," he said. "We are hoping things have bottomed out and will start moving back up."

The elephant in the room is jobs, most people interviewed agreed.

"The big unknown is unemployment," said Gerard Mulligan, president and CEO of Riverbank, with branches throughout the Merrimack Valley and Southern New Hampshire.

"You can't be confident about anything if you're not confident about your job," he said.

He compared the job market to the ongoing turmoil in the housing market.

"The big overhang has been the housing market," he said. "It's been declining for so long, it will come back. ... Companies will continue to lay off people, but eventually, you have to say, 'Well, there have been so many layoffs, eventually it will stop.'"

Timothy Warren, CEO of the Boston-based real estate tracking company Warren Group, said the housing market should start showing some improvement in the spring. He expects home values to level off, rather than dropping off a cliff, and foreclosures to slow down.

Warren said that while 2008 saw more than 11,500 foreclosures, 2009 should drop to around 10,000. In the past three months, his company has reported fewer than 1,000 foreclosures a month. The number was above 1,000 per month during the six months prior to that.

The commercial real estate picture could be another story altogether.

Last month, the nonprofit Urban Land Institute released its 30th annual Emerging Trends in Real Estate report. It predicted "the bottom of the commercial real estate market will hit in 2009 and spill over into 2010."

The survey covered the top 10 U.S. markets, including the Boston area.

Stephen Blank, senior resident fellow at the Institute and co-author of the report, said the result will be that some malls could be forced out of business as an increasing number of stores either shut down or move to busier venues.

Harry Shea, president of Shea Commercial Properties in Salem, N.H., agreed that the owners of commercial real estate may be in for a rocky ride.

"The consensus is that a lot of people think it's going to be 2010 before it picks up," he said. "I've been very busy — not because the market is great, but because there's a lot of motivation on the part of people who own properties."

He noted that over the last year or so, banks have been busy taking residential properties in foreclosure. Now, commercial property owners are feeling the heat.

"We are getting more sellers who are getting boxed in and need to move the property," he said. "We have more than a few vacancies. There's a lot of motivation to get properties leased up."

Shea knows of four used car dealerships that have shut down in southern New Hampshire in recent months, victims of the downward spiral in the car industry.

Tom Barenboim, president and CEO of Clark Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge in Methuen, said the new car business also is suffering.

"More dealerships will go out of business," said Barenboim, who purchased the shuttered Manzi Dodge in 2007. "The first quarter will be tough."

But, he said, things should start to turn around in the second half of the year.

"The industry (in 2008) sold 11 million cars and trucks," he said. "Over the previous six years, it's been around 16.8 million a year."

For next year, he predicted sales of more than 13 million cars and trucks, meaning 2009 could prove to be a very good year for the dealerships that do survive, he said.

Paul Taylor, chief economist for the National Automobile Dealers Association, said his prediction of 13.1 million vehicle sales next year depends on the loosening of the credit markets. Sales plummeted toward the end of this year when credit became harder to get.

"If lending can be normalized, there is a decent amount of demand built up," Taylor said. He thinks 2009 will be the reverse of this year — tough sales through the first half of the year, with some improvement during the second.

Green-related businesses will continue to grow in 2009, experts say. Companies dealing in solar panels, geothermal, hydro-power and other green products are expected to thrive.

Dan Leary, president of Nexamp of North Andover, an alternative energy company, said that in 2009 jobs will continue to be created in his industry.

"In the last two weeks, we've hired three more people," said Leary, who started the company in 2007 with one other person — business partner Will Thompson. The company now has 27 employees.

He said federal tax credits make solar and other alternative energy projects "more lucrative for homeowners," while the state of Massachusetts plans on pumping $13 million in incentives into solar power.

The best news for the business, however, is President-elect Barak Obama's recent pronouncements that alternative energy will be a cornerstone of his plan to rebuild the nation's economy.

"We're not exactly sure how it's going to play out," said Leary, adding that federal incentives could mean more solar projects for schools or other municipal buildings.

Quincy Vale, president of PowerHouse Enterprises, a Lawrence-based builder of energy-efficient homes, said that in the short-term, Obama's expected economic incentive package probably won't help green companies too much. In the long run, though, he expects companies like his could benefit.

"Down the road, what you'll start to see is more engineering jobs at utility companies and energy companies due to a push to upgrade the grid," he said, referring to the poles, wires and power plants that create and distribute electricity to homes and businesses throughout New England.

"That will turn it into a smart and resilient grid, which will require investments from utility companies," he said. "Within a year or two, you will see more of an uptick in technician-type jobs — planning, CAD (computer-aided design), transportation, engineering, electricians and plumbers. Every kind of job will have a green hue."

That will require community colleges and other schools to collaborate with workforce investment boards to try to place their students on those paths that will enable them to get jobs in the green economy.

Unfortunately, employment in the environmental field may be the one and only bright spot in the jobs market.

Noah Berger, executive director of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, said that while "nobody can predict the future, the emerging concensus is that things are likely to get worse before they get better."

He said that until recently, widespread layoffs to state and municipal employees has been avoided. But with Gov. Patrick's recent announcement of an additional $1 billion deficit, on top of a previously announced $1.4 billion deficit, many people, particularly those in health care and education, could be out on the street.

Those are two sectors that had been considered stalwarts in the Massachusetts economy.

Meanwhile, he said, manufacturing jobs will continue to be shed, and the struggling retail sector could add more people to the unemployment rolls.

Bevilacqua of the Chamber said he hopes that Obama's incentive package "gets people thinking about the economy in a positive way. The banking crisis is resolved, and hopefully people will start buying again."

Most important, he said, "employers need to maintain their workforce and put people back to work."

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