The real estate market around the world is changing rapidly: just 20 years ago it was difficult to imagine that people could buy houses and apartments on the Internet and find out about new offers using websites and smartphone applications. Like the Danish site Lokalebasen, where you can quickly find, say, shop for rent in Odense (“butik til leje Odense”) or office space in any other city, the details are here.

Another 20 years will pass, and the market will again be transformed beyond recognition. It will be influenced by new technologies that will forever change our daily habits. And, in turn, our attitude toward housing and infrastructure.

We discuss how nanotechnologies, 3D printers, underground construction, and high-speed ground transport (including unmanned vehicles) will affect the real estate market around the world in our article.

1. Super high-speed trains will unite cities into megacities

In the future, there will be super-fast trains similar to the Hyperloop. Hyperloop remains an as-yet unrealized transportation project. It would be twice as fast as an airplane and three to four times as fast as a high-speed train. (In this case, the travel time from Los Angeles to San Francisco (600 km) would only take 30 minutes.)

The advent of super-high-speed trains will reduce travel time, and large settlements located next to each other will become one. Peripheral areas will be more prestigious. Additionally, in the territories between the united cities, there will be potential for rising property prices. In China, a similar project is already underway. Authorities plan to create a metropolis of Jing-Jin-Ji with a population of 130 million people. The metropolis consists of nine large cities.

2. The number of parking lots and gas stations will be reduced

In 20 years, most cars will be self-driving. According to Ray Kurzweil, a futurist, by 2024 people will be banned from driving cars that are not equipped with cyber assistants. Kurzweil also predicts that self-driving cars will be on the roads by 2033. There will be less parking on the main streets. Cars will park themselves in more remote free or cheap parking lots. Electric car manufacturer Tesla has already introduced the Summon feature. This feature allows the car to enter and exit a parking space on its own.

In addition, gas stations in the usual sense will also become a thing of the past. Most cars will operate on electricity or hydrogen.

3. Construction will go underground

The population of cities will grow, the land will become more expensive, and there will be fewer available plots for construction. Therefore, look for various kinds of projects to go increasingly underground. An example of one of the projects of the future includes the Lowline underground park. The park was projected to open in 2021 on the site of an abandoned tram terminal on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

In the next decades, in large cities, parks and profitable objects will “go underground”: warehouses, gyms, spas, nightclubs, etc.

4. Nanotechnology will reduce the cost of construction

The development of nanotechnology will lead to the emergence and widespread use of new building materials. This will make it possible to produce super-strong, elastic, and thin nanowires, self-cleaning water- and dirt-repellent coatings, high-strength concrete, materials and structures that store solar energy, ultra-strong flexible glass, and much more.

All this will make it possible to realize even the most daring fantasies of architects. According to Ray Kurzweil, nanotechnology will flourish in the industry in 2030. This will lead to cheaper goods, including a reduced cost of building materials and construction in general.

5. Houses will be built using 3D printers

In 2014, Shanghai-based WinSun built ten houses using four 3D printers in just one day. Cheap materials (a mixture of cement and recycled waste) and no need for manual labor have reduced the cost of each house to $5,000.

So far, the buildings erected with the help of printers are single, but in the next decades, this process will become massive. The head of WinSun, Ma Yihe, believes that in the future, using 3D printers, it will be possible to carry out much more ambitious projects, such as building skyscrapers. As a result of the application of this technology, the process of building buildings will become cheaper and faster. Real estate software development will play a crucial role in integrating and optimizing the use of robots for managing and maintaining rental properties in the near future.

6. Homes will be bought virtually

If you need to find a shop for rent in Aarhus (“butik til leje århus”) on the already mentioned Lokalebasen site, then you can easily do it. But you will see everything in a 2D format already familiar to everyone.

Augmented reality technologies imply the imitation of the surrounding world with the help of technical means. According to Business Insider, the VR headset market has grown from $37 million in 2015 to $2.8 billion in 2020 and will continue to grow annually.

Ray Kurzweil expects “total immersion” (no extra hardware) virtual reality to arrive in 2039 when nanomachines can be implanted directly into the brain. Virtual reality helmets, with the advancements in vision pro development, will be used to organize virtual tours when buying a home. You no longer need to leave your home to view a property.

7. Robots and gadgets will make housing management easier

In the near future, the rental real estate market will actively use robots. They will be able to clean, wash clothes and fix broken things. As a result, look for the cost of managing and maintaining real estate to significantly reduce.

Back in 2016, the French company Blue Frog Robotics began selling models of the Buddy social robot, whose purpose is to communicate with family members, but, according to Ray Kurzweil’s forecasts, personal robots capable of independent complex actions will become just as familiar in every home by 2027. like a refrigerator or coffee maker.

Conclusion

The emergence of new technologies will change our lives, and with it the real estate market: all processes related to daily human activities are automated, logistics and information exchange will accelerate, and construction will become cheaper.