"I am excited to report our continued success in executing our asset sale strategy. In the past 12 months, we have sold four hotels for approximately $450 million. This sale meaningfully reduces our overall market presence in Atlanta, which now represents approximately 3 precent of our total revenues," says Gregory Larson, executive vice president of corporate strategy for Host Hotels & Resorts Inc.

"The bottom line is that 2013 is going to be the lucky year," said Rossell, former chief economist for CNBC. Rossell's comments came last week at CREW Atlanta and Corenet Global Atlanta's 4th Annual 2013 Economic Forecast Luncheon. "We'll finally see the upward trends that began at the end of 2012."

Rossell explained to a room of more than 450 people that 2013 will start to witness the economic recovery that simply comes with time. She expects an influx of capital in the market in anticipation of higher interest rates to come in 2014.

When it comes to Atlanta, Rossell said that the city's recovery will lag behind the nation's rebound. Atlanta's economy will diversify in 2013 as companies move out of finance and construction, and into business services, education and healthcare. The diversified growth in other sectors will poise Atlanta for a gradual recovery as the year goes on.

Dr. Rajeev Dhawan, director of Georgia State University's Economic Forecasting Center, predicts that the Atlanta economy will generate 47,300 jobs this year. 

"2013 is that year where numbers go from being equivocally negative to seeing growth," summarized Rossell.