Currently, according to KPMG’s ‘Global Construction Survey 2017. Do it or destroy it’, 37 percent of the global construction sector workforce are millennials, and their behavior will lead to a notable evolution in the field.
Starting from the definition of millennial, it is about those young people who were born between 1981 and 1995, who today are between 20 and 35 years old, who became adults with the turn of the millennium and whose main features are their level of demand and high criticality at the consumer level, a taste for personalization, addiction to social networks and a life that revolves around their mobile phone and the applications they store, like good digital natives that they are.
They, according to a Deloitte projection, are 30 percent of the American population, and it is estimated that in 2025 they will represent 75 percent of the world’s workforce.
The decisions they make will be crucial in the real estate sector, an area of high importance to change the course of countries or entire economic regions. An example of this is the current tourist, economic and social activity of Paris, derived from the Eiffel Tower project in the 19th century, or Dubai with all its real estate infrastructure, which kept it from being just another desert in the United Arab Emirates United.
Aleksandr Pritsker, a young real estate developer from the United States explains in an editorial text that for the sector, millennials are divided into five types:
Millennial tenant: The tenants of warehouses or industrial parks and corporate offices of the future, it indicates, will seek transparency and good practices, a property with excellent maintenance and preventive operation through the use of technology and the adoption of sustainable practices.
“Connectivity, intelligent operating systems, wind or solar energy, treated water and green areas that coexist in balance with concrete and steel should be a must. Finally, flexibility in the distribution of spaces, or layout, becomes an indispensable aspect for the millennial, particularly in terms of office spaces,” he says.
Millennial investor: Investors of the future will seek predictability and a transparent structure when investing. Pritsker points out that the Real Estate Trusts have a great advantage in this regard and offer greater security and confidence, mainly those investment vehicles with a strategic diversification in their property portfolio.
Millennial owner: The expert predicts that new landlords will no longer want to worry about the state or occupation of their properties. The new trend, he indicates, will be the acquisition of properties through fiduciary titles instead of the purchase of real estate with an investment purpose.
Given this, Pritsker indicates, the value of the titles is as attractive as the capital gain of a property, the risks are minimized by diversifying the investment base, there is a professional management structure, and they are easy to inherit from the next generations.
Millennial developer: Smart, sophisticated, and sustainable developments for millennials are the foundation of the future.
The corporate offices that this generation will develop evolve into smart spaces that combine corporate offices, warehouses, industrial warehouses, commerce, services, suppliers, highway accesses, airports, among others.
Millennial broker: Those dedicated to finding the perfect match between seller and buyer, will have all the ‘data’ available in terms of properties, relevant location information, full reports and even local histories of each property, which lends itself to at the same time benefit the sense of personalization that consumers of the generation seek.
All of the above, they will seek to do it with a mentality attached to their habits: without complex procedures, without complications and without loss of time.