NEW YORK CITY—“Venturing guesses about the future is always a risky business—more so when innovative concepts stem from inventors, owners and investors who advocate on their behalf and promote them, sometimes to the point of hype.” That's according to a new report commissioned by Capital One and prepared by MIT's Center for Real Estate, which nonetheless does place some bets on what lies in store for the industry.

Titled “Real Trends: The Future of Real Estate in the United States,” the report charts the ways in which changes in technology, demographics and policy will converge and fundamentally alter the way industry professionals conduct business. For example, the report predicts that housing affordability issues in that nation's most expensive cities will be partially tackled by adapting buildings and land to more intensive residential uses.

“We need to supplement our traditional tools with innovative techniques to increase the stock of affordable housing,” says Laura Bailey, SVP of Capital One Community Finance. “Adaptive reuse is just one of the creative ways to meet this critical need.”