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Whereas the commercial sector increasingly is abandoning its old analog ways and shifting to property technology, or proptech, the buzzword for building-related applications, the real revolution will come when commercial real estate companies not only have amassed large amounts of data, but also have figured out how to combine information from different apps and turn that data into actionable intelligence, said panelists speaking at the 2019 ULI Fall Meeting.

Technology and innovation were hot topics at the 2019 ULI Fall Meeting in Washington, D.C. These are some of the insights that speakers and attendees shared.

Improved connectivity leads to better cities and more profitable buildings, and data can play a crucial role in analyzing that connectivity and planning to maximize it, said a keynote speaker at the ULI Asia Pacific Leadership Convivium in Singapore.

Speaking at an event in New York City, Dror Poleg, a former real estate and technology executive and co-chair of ULI New York’s Technology and Innovation Council, said shifts in real estate often result from overlooked factors that alter its value, beginning in the faraway emergence of landlord/tenant relations out of feudalism and stretching to the innovations of today.

China is a nation of more than 1 billion “digital-first” consumers, Jeffrey Towson, managing partner at Towson Group and a Peking University professor, said at a recent ULI event in Shanghai. Because these consumers are starting to act like an interconnected network—influencing each other and generating fresh ways of doing transactions—they are shaping how almost all companies do business.

Parks and open space have provided a much-needed respite from the quarantine slowing the spread of COVID-19, according to experts participating in a ULI webinar.

Real estate investment in the Asia Pacific region has been on a downward trend since 2019, and market uncertainty brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the situation, said speakers at a recent ULI Singapore event held virtually.

According to survey data from the latest ULI Real Estate Economic Forecast, the current economic recession will be short-lived in the United States, with above-average gross domestic product growth returning in 2021 and 2022. Second, the impact on real estate market conditions and values will be relatively modest and much less severe than the impact experienced during the global financial crisis, with some exceptions by sector.

Many countries in Asia have successfully mitigated the spread of COVID-19 through a range of strategies that include universal mask use, testing, sophisticated technology for contact tracing, and strict government quarantine and cleaning protocols, according to leading real estate professionals participating in a recent ULI webinar. The participants described impacts on their real estate businesses, and how the real estate industry has been enlisted in the fight against the coronavirus.

At the 2020 ULI Singapore Conference, which was held virtually, panelists discussed how hotels have started to offer takeout and delivery to nonguests, in addition to working with the local government to house those under quarantine orders.