Emerging Trends Europe

The 2018 edition of our annual Emerging Trends in Real Estate^® Europe report was launched in Amsterdam on 1 November 2017. Undertaken jointly by ULI and PwC, the report provides an outlook on real estate investment and development trends, real estate finance and capital markets, cities, property sectors and other real estate issues throughout Europe. The global version of the report will be launched in March 2018.

Retail

With e-commerce continuing to hit retail sales, shopping centres are increasingly focusing on building identity and social purpose through dining, leisure, and services in order to stay relevant. ULI’s new research report Trading Up: Dining, Leisure, Amenities, and the New Shopping Centre will be launched at MAPIC on 16 November 2017 by the ULI Retail and Entertainment Council in partnership with JLL.

Business Districts

Business districts that are merely places of work are a thing of the past. For global business districts to remain competitive, they must employ attractive, mixed-use urban planning and placemaking features that appeal to workers, companies, and the public. This idea is explored in our upcoming report in partnership with EY: The Attractiveness of World-class Business Districts: Paris La Defense vs. its Global Competitors. This study is based upon a global survey of users and property professionals, who helped establish the criteria for successful business districts and inform the report’s global business district ranking.  The report will launch on 22 November 2017 at the Revolution@Work event in La Defense, Paris.

Housing Affordability

A key topic for ULI Europe is housing affordability. This is a pressing problem in many cities around Europe. This can be seen in a rise in housing costs as a percentage of household expenditure, falling homeownership rates, and a rise in homelessness. Yet while housing affordability is a shared challenge across European cities and countries, it can be difficult to find meaningful ways to compare experiences and learn from each other. Moreover, definitions and measurements of affordability vary between countries.

The European housing affordability research project, led by the ULI Europe Residential Council, will model the housing situation for 12 archetypal households in six cities around Europe: London, Warsaw, Berlin, Dublin, Amsterdam, and Barcelona. This data will allow us to compare and draw lessons from the experiences of a variety of cities in Europe that vary in size, economic structure, and average income. It will also enable us to measure real housing costs at the moment, and to track them over time. The data collection and analysis is currently underway and we hope to present the project at the next ULI Europe Residential Product Council meeting in Berlin at the end of January 2018.

We have also collaborated with Play the City on our ongoing housing affordability games that took place in Dublin in June 2017 and Amsterdam in September 2017. The game gathers key stakeholders such as city officials, developers, and investors to tackle the housing crisis in their respective cities through scenario planning and devise solutions on where to invest and develop affordable housing in the future. More games will be rolled out in 2018.

Competitive Cities

Building on our previous work on competitive cities with Antwerp and Brussels in May 2016, we are assessing the competitiveness of Milan and Turin. The aim of the research is to recommend the cities’ best paths forward to improve future competitiveness, highlighting their assets and opportunities. The workshops took place in September 2017 and the final report will launch at ULI Italy’s annual conference in April 2018.

Projects in the Pipeline

ULI Europe is currently developing new content projects on topics including cybersecurity and building sustainability certification systems. We are also preparing a number of community advisory projects, through which our members share their expertise and support cities to tackle land use challenges. We are always open to discussing new research ideas and partnerships that will benefit ULI members; for more information please contact [email protected].

This post was written by Amanprit Arnold, Content Manager, ULI Europe