A few hours after the 2018 edition of Simi came to a close, what should we take away from this major real estate industry crossroads? We could have told you about new attendance records, a sign that the industry is one of France's leading industries in terms of GDP (nearly 11%) and jobs (over 2 million). And, above all, one of the most promising when we look at the growth potential and the appetite of companies to recruit in the coming years, according to the first results of the 3rd edition of the Real Estate & Urban Employment Monitor carried out by EY, in partnership with the Palladio Foundation and Business Immo.
But we prefer to emphasize the new dynamics driving real estate, where the main focus of value creation no longer revolves around the square metre, but rather on the synthesis between the container - the building - and the content - the services it offers.
Real estate operators are increasingly proficient in the former, have learned the lessons of the past, and are all looking ahead to the building of tomorrow, which will be energy-efficient, environmentally resilient, efficient for its occupants, reversible or mutable according to use, and open to the city rather than inward-looking.
In terms of content, let's be frank: they're just getting started. The first step is to understand that the tenant - in other words, the cash-flow earner - is a little more than a user. He's a customer! Gecina's semantic move, with its new YouFirst brand, is a further sign of this awareness. The temptation for some lessors is to move on to the operational stage and operate all or part of their buildings themselves. The explosion in coworking and the WeWork and Spaces models have given rise to ideas, as Covivio has done with its subsidiary Wellio.
The next question is: who will capture this famous value creation? Today, "container" and "content" players coexist without much friction in a market driven by short-term economic conditions. But with new technologies, new players are looking to get into the building, and not just a few PropTech start-ups. The Gafa companies have understood that city building is an industry of the future.
The nightmare for real estate operators and investors would be to become (or remain) manufacturers and collectors of boxes. A bit like in the early '80s, when IBM - the world's largest computer manufacturer - let the value of its operating system supplier, a certain Microsoft, slip away. A scenario that no one wants to see, but that no one is totally ruling out.