Notes from ULI Triangle Emerging Trends 2020

Oak City CRE
Nov 8 · 3 min read

This year the Raleigh-Durham, NC Market was named the #2 market for real estate investing in the country in the Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2020 Report from PWC and ULI.

On Wednesday November 6th, 2019 I attended the Trends Breakfast meeting at the NC Museum of History to learn more. Here are my key take aways:


The first speaker was Andy Warren with PwC, presenting the actual Trends.

  • Every year on the national survey there are a few people, this year it was 16, that believe next year will be an “abysmal” year for the industry.
  • There is a danger in relying on the averages when looking at the data. Some markets will fair better than others. Always dig into the data and challenge assumptions. [QUICK SIDE NOTE: One assumption I want to challenge was on a slide showing a 3.5M deficit in housing units nation wide. The slide, shown below, assumes we had housing parity in 2008. It then goes on to show the difference between household formation over time and new units delivered. Now, I am not saying that we don’t have a shortfall in housing, I believe the rise in prices indicates a shortfall, but I do believe this it not the way to demonstrate that shortfall. What if we had 1M extra homes in 2008, the “shortfall” would be ~2.5M instead. What if we started with a true deficit of 5M homes in 2008, the “deficit” would be much larger. Again, challenge the assumptions.]
  • Trend #5 this year was “A community state of mind”. People across markets and asset classes seem to crave community. I think there are a lot of reasons for this, but it a trend that I like to see and fully support!
  • Trend #6, Hipsturbia. Is Cary, NC really Hipsturbia? Challenge the data/assumptions…
  • Infrastructure: “The cities that invest in infrastructure will see the economic development advantages”. I think one important point here is that we can not limit the infrastructure conversation to roads and highways. Infrastructure is water/sewer, data networks, non-automotive transportation, as well as zoning and other policy.

Next up was Greg Lindsay with New Cities discussing Cities as a Service (CaaS?)

  • “People make places, places make gossip, and gossip makes people money.” AKA cities will ALWAYS matter.
  • Walkability has shown a positive divergence in importance and value since the global financial crisis.
  • “code is the new concrete”
  • “Parking is real estate in hiding” -Reilly Brennan
  • There is a thing, that exists today, called MobyMart. An autonomous 24-hour convenience store!
  • Greg says that there is a big opportunity to urbanize the suburbs. I agree. I think community is really important and connection matters, but it will be next to impossible to physically move everyone to an urban core, even if that is their preference. The suburbs are sticky, so we will bring the urban core to the burbs!
  • College towns as an anchor and highly desirable location is a big deal. And in the triangle we have 3 college towns in 1!

That about wraps it up at a high level. Did you attend the event? What did you think? What did I miss? Let me know on Twitter!

Oak City CRE

Written by

The Acorn — “The Simple Community-Based CRE Brief” — is focused on the Triangle and sent out every Tuesday! https://mailchi.mp/9741ec810e60/the-acorn-newsletter

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