ULI: Recovery Will Gain Momentum in 2014

CHICAGO—The Urban Land Institute and PwC have just released the 35th edition of Emerging Trends in Real Estate, a joint publication based on interviews and surveys they did with over 1,000 professionals. And the general feeling is that what had been a modest recovery will gain momentum in 2014.

“People were starting to talk about development again, and we hadn’t heard that in years,” said Steven Blank of ULI. For several years, much activity has been driven by a compression in cap rates, but in 2014, interviewees expect property enhancements to be one of the big drivers. “The industry is getting itself on a solid footing financially,” Blank explained, but “we’re going to have to get our fingernails dirty if we want to make money.”