The disruptive forces around the real estate industry are numerous and well-documented, and there is, rightly, intense focus on the need to adapt to the challenges - climate change, demographic shifts and the working world post-pandemic, to name only a few. 

Adjusting how real estate physically presents itself to consumers, occupiers, investors, and with an improved resilience is clearly imperative. However, delivering on this also requires a seismic operational shift within real estate companies themselves, as Emerging Trends in European Real Estate 2022, published by the ULI and PwC points out.

The property industry has a reputation for lagging a revolution at the pace of a tortoise but I’m not sure that remains accurate - dynamism is crucial to survival. This has been my experience of the property management sector anyway, which has gone through immeasurable change in business transformation over the last few years.

Covid-19 was, of course, one push factor. The rapid rise of wellness in real estate was creating impetus for organisational changes but the pandemic also meant occupiers needed safe, healthy spaces for their employees. This brought the concept of wellness and health into the day-to-day running of buildings.

Given that drive from landlords and tenants it is no surprise that the Global Wellness Institute is predicting that the number of residential and commercial properties that incorporate wellness into design, materials, amenities or services will double by 2025. Indeed, it has already grown by 22 per cent in 2019-2020, prompting seismic shifts in how we do business.

Being on the front foot during the pandemic was crucial. Cleaning regimes needed to be spotless and air quality managed effectively to bring employees back to office. Health and safety is never returning to the box ticking it once could be. Knowing this, we now make wellbeing and safety front and centre, signalled by the fact it is now the first agenda point in every meeting.

This means that while the role of the surveyor remains key to growth and business origination, we also need significant levels of support from a raft of skilled experts to deliver client service. Wellness is one reason for that but the greater role of diversity and inclusion and ESG to building management means the people we employ and choose to represent at board level has altered already. Board members now consist of experts in safety, diversity, people management, ESG, engineering and design, even hospitality – all help to manage the job of running a modern property.

Not least of all, we need exceptional technical people who understand how to develop the platforms needed to operate buildings efficiently. They are also vital to ensure that the management of a building is guided by the experience of it by occupants who have become customers; a lease renewal will sink or swim on the quality of that customer’s experience. So this requires real-time insights into building performance on many levels - for its inhabitants, for the environment, and, increasingly, in terms of the social value it offers.

That level of knowledge requires major investments in the right property technology, choosing the best options from a busy, rapidly evolving market. That kind of investment will be ongoing as we run fast to stay ahead. For the kind of changes the industry is now facing, transformation must happen at the pace of a hare. 

Further information

Contact Katrina MacKay

How have occupier needs from landlords and agents changed over the past decade?