Real Estate 2040: Beyond the Core

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Real Estate 2040: Beyond the Core

3/9/2026

Defining the Next Generation of Real Estate

Ruben Bos

Head of Real Estate Investment Strategy

Rosie Hunt

Property Market Research

IN A NUTSHELL

Structural forces are reshaping real estate. DWS surveyed more than 200 real estate professionals to identify the sectors and asset types most likely to redefine the real estate landscape by 2040.
Survey results appear to point to the strongest opportunities in housing, health, technology and energy, where modular housing, edge and vertical data centres and battery storage offer potentially deep structural demand with real scalability.
Investors may want to consider proactively (re)position portfolios, repurposing existing assets and allocating capital toward future‑proof data, energy and well‑being formats, potentially securing resilience today and relevance tomorrow.

What will our cities look like in the decades ahead? It’s not difficult to imagine a future where autonomous vehicles drive down smart roads, drones delivering parcels buzz overhead, housing is factory-built, and data centres quietly power our AI-driven lives. In many ways, these shifts are already underway. While views differ on what technologies would become the norm, and how quickly they’ll become part of daily life, one thing appears certain: Real estate would likely continue to evolve as powerful megatrends reshape how we live, work, travel and interact.

This is nothing new. Real estate has always adapted to the world around it, as have real estate investors. Take the composition of core portfolios over the past twenty years. As highlighted in our previous report The Changing World of Real Estate, logistics has surged from below 15% to more than 30% of European core holdings, largely at the expense of retail, as e-commerce reshaped consumer behaviour.^[1] And it’s hard to imagine that residential once was a small component of core portfolios. Meanwhile, office exposure has declined, reflecting, amongst other things, the rise of flexible and hybrid working models.

What comes next? This report explores new and emerging sectors that may be set to redefine the real estate landscape by 2040.

Real Estate 2040: Beyond the Core

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