Real estate shapes our world. That is why it is particularly important in our industry to keep an eye on the market and to recognise the trends of tomorrow early. This is the only way we can design real estate today to meet the requirements of tomorrow.
This principle guides us at Commerz Real: identifying new trends, developing new standards, unlocking new potential - before others do.
Here are six trends that will shape the real estate industry over the next twenty years.
1Destatis – Demographic Change (2024): https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Querschnitt/Demografischer-Wandel/_inhalt.html
2ifo Institute – Majority of Companies See No Difference in Productivity Between the Office and Working from Home (2023): https://www.ifo.de/fakten/2023-10-17/mehrheit-der-unternehmen-sieht-gleiche-produktivitaet-im-buero-und-homeoffice
3G20 Global Infrastructure Outlook – Infrastructure investment needs (as of February 2026): https://outlook.gihub.org
Our society is getting older. The needs of older people are thus becoming more of a focus. Not least because, thanks to the rising quality of life and growing health awareness, many people stay fit much longer than they did a few decades ago.1
At the same time, the medical sector is changing: Younger clinicians are now placing greater focus on work-life balance and flexible, often part-time working models.
For the real estate strategy, this means: Anyone who no longer thinks of real estate in one dimension, but instead combines several functions under one roof, can adapt it to a much wider range of needs. Together, retail and healthcare create new social meeting places. Specialist medical services combined with sports, wellness or cosmetics create added value - for tenants, users and investors.
An example from the hausInvest portfolio shows what this looks like in practice: In Frankfurt Westend, the healthcare company Eterno has designed practice areas to resemble a shared coworking space. Flexible structures optimise work processes, save time and enable more comprehensive treatment. The open design of the surfaces - as part of the so-called healing architecture - actively contributes to the well-being of patients.
The coronavirus pandemic has fundamentally changed the way we work. Flexible models such as working from home and flexitime are firmly established in many highly digitalised countries. This has its benefits, especially when it comes to reconciling private and professional life.
But you can't do it without an office. The task of companies is to bring people back into the office, not by force, but by offer. Flat rates according to generations X, Y and Z are too short. Our society and our life designs have become too complex.
What really matters is the quality of the workplace. Not a bar or table football in the office, but a working environment that enables productive work and is at least as appealing as your own home. Then people come to the office because they want to - not because they have to.
Digitalisation and digital networking are now indispensable in the real estate industry. The decisive question is not whether, but how we integrate digital technologies productively into our properties and working structures.
The increase in working from home during the coronavirus crisis has shown: There is no one-size-fits-all answer to productivity. What often suffers is the power of innovation - that is, what makes personal collaboration and spontaneous exchange possible first.2 Rooms must therefore keep up with technology and at the same time protect what cannot be replaced digitally: Encounter, exchange, joint thinking.
Productively integrating digital technologies into real estate without displacing social issues is one of the key future trends in our industry.
Above all, one aspect is decisive for the value of an office property: their position. Central, well-connected, with important facilities within easy reach. That’s the classic core concept - and it stays right. But that’s not enough.
Because when people work differently, shop differently and live differently, the factors that make an urban environment attractive also change. A single property that sees itself as a closed system loses relevance. What counts is the contribution to the urban living environment in which it is embedded.
Specifically, this means: Real estate needs to be thought of as part of a connected neighbourhood. Not as an individual value, but as a building block of an urban landscape. Anyone who implements this today not only secures the long-term value of their properties, but also actively contributes to the future of the site.
Tucherpark is a fillet in the heart of Munich and in the middle of the greenery. The location on the Eisbach river has unique potential for a modern neighbourhood that combines urbanity and nature.
When roads, railways, waterways, power supply and telecommunications lines are reliably developed, everyone benefits: people, companies and the state.
Crises are now part of the reality of our industry. The rapid resolution of political, economic and social uncertainties is more of an exception than a rule. Our world is too complex and complex for such distortions to be calmed quickly.
What does this mean for the real estate industry? Instead of hoping for a short-term recovery, we should focus on long-term resilience. Construction costs, interest rate increases, market fluctuations, rental losses - these are no longer contingencies, but planning variables. If you involve them from the outset, you can take precautions at an early stage and cushion negative developments.
In difficult times in particular, proactive action pays off. The climate crisis, for example, requires the sustainable transformation of existing properties. Regulatory requirements for energy efficiency will increase. As asset managers, we cannot and should not hide from such developments. Nobody expects everything to be optimised immediately. But those who deal with the relevant challenges today and make the appropriate decisions are doing the right thing.
Good properties are not built and then forgotten. They are actively developed further: through renovations, new usage concepts, better energy supply. In the industry, we call this “manage-to-core”: turn an average object into a first-class one.
Sustainability is no longer possible today. The goal is shifting from “Manage-to-Core” to “Manage-to-Green” - and “Green” here means more than environmental protection. It covers all three dimensions, which are combined under the term ESG: environmental responsibility, social commitment and responsible corporate governance.
This has long been an economic reality: Today’s most in-demand tenants simply demand sustainability standards. If you want to win, you have to deliver.
This works best in partnership. Close cooperation with the tenants - with shared goals, clear agreements and mutual incentives - is the basis for a property operation that is sustainable in the long term.
health, work, digitalisation, neighbourhood, resilience, sustainability. These six trends have one thing in common: They reward everyone who acts today. Those who wait until the pressure comes from the outside have already taken the initiative.
The future of the real estate industry is open, but not arbitrary. The course is now set. We make them active.
A Commerzbank Group company