By AZRE | Via AZBigMedia
The Urban Land Institute (ULI) and PwC US released Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2021, highlighting the evolving trends shaping the real estate industry. The report, which includes proprietary data and insights from more than 1,600 leading real estate industry experts, explores how Covid-19 accelerated changes in the real estate industry and many existing trends like retail footprint reductions, while it spawned new ones such as an increased focus on social justice and health and wellness, and stopped others in their tracks like the appeal of big cities.
The report highlights how Covid-19 heightened the desirability of lower density areas for both residential and commercial real estate, with interest concentrated in the Sunbelt markets. Cost-conscious companies will gravitate toward cities that are business-friendly and low cost with large, growing workforces. Raleigh/Durham, N.C., for example, is nicknamed the “Bay Area of the East Coast,” due to a surge in technology jobs and the area’s reputation as an education mecca. Homebuyers will look for suburban locations with low taxes, affordable housing, auto-oriented transportation, and good job prospects. While growth in the suburbs has been a consistent trend since this report first predicted it five years ago, greater family formation among millennials and flexible work from home policies are boosting this shift.
