What will the property market look like in 2035?
Back in 1995 we were in the early days of the internet, we worked in cubicles and our computers were chunky and powered by Windows 95. There were no touch screen phones or flat screen TVs; people laughed at the idea of reading electronic books, and watching a home movie meant loading a clunky cassette into your VCR. Suggest that in a few years we will be ‘talking’ to our house to turn on the lights, turn down the heating or re-order the milk and it would be suggested you are spending too much time watching Star Trek! Only the brave would go further and mention cars will be driving themselves!
Fast forward 20 years to the mid 2030’s and some of us will be working in the Starship Enterprise’s holodeck. Your day will start with your colleagues in a room with digital whiteboards projected on all four walls that you can scribble on with your fingers; then you voice command the room to save your brainstorming session and transform the wall decor and ornamental furniture into a formal boardroom layout; then you voice command the room to transform again into a multimedia presentation showroom to present your latest plans to your visiting clients. The only real objects in the room will be weight-bearing objects like chairs and a table.
Carrying your Smarphone or Mobile Virtual Assistant (think Alexa’s children) will become so last year, by the late 2030’s we will have sticky plaster thin wearable or even implantable devices that connect straight to the web to answer any data based question. Intelligence will be measured not by how many facts you know but by the quality of the questions you ask and how you apply that knowledge.
So what will the property market look like in 20 years time given this inevitable growth in technology? A growth by the way, that we must manage towards intelligence augmentation (IA) ie giving us tools and information to eliminate dull and mundane tasks so we can focus on core activities, leading to greater productivity and creativity. The reverse of IA is AI, a darker reality where we build machines that learn and build on information from human interaction, and eventually replace humans for specific tasks.
So here are 6 predictions for the property market in 2035;
- Innovation in building technology will render projects feasible that were previously uneconomic. Therefore, we can expect road transport to be moved underground more, increasing pedestrian spaces above ground.
- As buildings become taller and denser, the line between private and public spaces will become increasingly blurred and nature will become part of urban architecture in the form of vertical gardens or farms.
- Innovation in transport will create less congestion and therefore require fewer roads for a variety of reasons. Logistics and e-commerce providers will use drones for deliveries to residential and commercial areas.
- Half empty buses will be a thing of the past, with public transport becoming demand-driven with a big data and AI powered network.
- People will be picked up and dropped off by shared driverless cars on demand, with minimal resource wastage.
- Over 50% of the internet traffic in our homes will be for appliances and devices. Our entire way of consuming at home and at work will drastically change with ever increasing connectivity.
What do you think will be the greatest changes to how the property market operates in 2035? Maybe smart, connected rental properties, virtual property viewings or app based property brokering?
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