PwC has predicted that confidence will return to the real estate sector this year as the industry faces a number of fundamental shifts that will shape its future.
The report said while many of the trends are already evident, there will be a natural tendency to underestimate how much the real estate world will have changed by 2020.
The report, Real Estate 2020 – Building the Future, said the operating landscape for asset managers will change by 2020 and advised real estate players to prepare for the challenges ahead and turn them into competitive advantages.
The report listed six predictions for the year such as stating that the global investable real estate universe will expand substantially, while fast-growing cities will present a wider range of risk and return opportunities.
It explained that this will lead to a huge expansion in opportunity, especially in emerging economies.
The report added that fast growing cities will present a wider range of risk and return opportunities while technology innovation and sustainability will be key It maintained that collaboration with governments will become more important while competition for prime assets will further intensify while a new and broader range of risks will emerge.
Other experts in the sector also argued that except slush fund is eliminated from the sector the real value of properties may not be known.
An Estate Surveyor and Valuer, Sola Enitan, decried massive influx of slush funds in the sector and advised government to tax idle properties to raise funds. According to him, this will check the many cases of abandoned properties especially in cities such as Abuja and Lagos where mansions and housing estates are abandoned by their owners without a care because the money in his estimation didn’t come from a legitimate source.