After the functional era, the service era? This is the path taken by the professional real estate sector just a handful of years ago, marking its cultural revolution. This is true in the office, with the advent of coworking, the flexible office and, more generally, the operated office. It's true in the residential sector, with the flowering of many different types of managed real estate, led by coliving. It's also true of the hotel industry, which has led the way in the service revolution, a veritable source of inspiration for all the conventional players in B-to-B real estate.
There's no doubt that the "hotelization" of real estate is underway, and its players are turning into genuine operators of their asset classes, skilfully blurring the boundaries between them. Hotels are home to coworking. Coworking hosts coliving. Coliving mixes with hotels... The famous real estate chain structured around several key functional links - from developer to investor to user - seems to have long outlived its usefulness. Today's real estate professional is first and foremost a player in the city, who must embrace several professions and skills. Over and above this new hierarchy, another chain is becoming established in the real estate industry, making the user - and sometimes even the citizen - the focal point of the whole process.
Necessarily user-centric and deliberately service-oriented, the real estate industry's value chain is now dominated by usage and guided by service at every level. This new situation in the French market illustrates the shift from an economy of ownership to one of use. It's a tidal wave that some compare to the emergence of supermarkets in France.
Let's make no mistake: we're talking about a revolution here, not just a marginal evolution. There are at least three reasons for this: lower costs, a smaller carbon footprint and a plebiscite on the part of company employees, whose voice is finally beginning to be heard. Tomorrow, in a more recessionary environment, this triple equation that underpins all-inclusive real estate, or real estate that provides a service, makes perfect sense.