More than just square meters. It's a tempting promise, but it's often more marketing than operational reality. Most investors' value proposition is limited to a well-calibrated, efficient real estate product, as environmentally virtuous as possible and above all... well located. The rest is up to the tenant.
Will real estate then be able to move from an economy of rent to an economy of use? The temptation to cross the Rubicon is increasingly strong among many investors, who have grasped the benefits of bringing PropCo and OpCo under the same roof.
There are a number of arguments in favor of opted-for real estate. Access to a market, as in the hotel industry, where investing in property walls and funds has become the norm, whereas it used to be the exception. Responding to changing needs, as in the office sector, where corporate demand is moving towards flexible, serviced workspaces.
But the question of value remains the primary argument for investors who have lost the low interest-rate driver in the performance of their assets. Some see real estate operations as a way of capturing the entire value chain of their assets. Others, to preserve it.
What they have in common is that the end customer is back at the center of the game. But he's on the move. Real estate is entering a new B to B to C era. Ultimately, it's the traveler, the student, the employee who will determine the value of the asset. And to understand how to capture and keep these customers, property owners need to draw on new skills. In hospitality, in marketing, in the animation of social networks... A far cry from the well-known spreadsheet wizards who have excelled in recent years.
It's often said that an intelligent building is a full building. Tomorrow, that may not be enough. A profitable building could become a finely exploited building whose value will be expressed in terms of an Ebitda multiple, and not just in terms of projected cash flow and a capitalization rate.
This is still the exception today. Perhaps the rule tomorrow.