In the coming years, it will be possible to access mountains of aggregated market data and do real-time valuations for industrial, retail, and office properties; and buildings will be traded online the way that stocks are traded now. That is the world envisioned by a panel of real estate information technology providers at ULI’s 2015 Fall Meeting in San Francisco, and they expect to see it happening in the next few years.

At last year’s Consumer Electronics Show, a unique fusion occurred: real estate, which ultimately is about presence, met phones and other devices that link people and places.

The desire of today’s creative class for connectivity, walkability and non-traditional live and work spaces is reshaping how designers, architects, and developers design homes and offices, says Christopher B. Leinberger, president of LOCUS, a real estate policy advocate for walkable and transit-oriented development.