ABSTRACT

Demand in the real estate market is driven by a combination of population growth, employment growth, economic growth and the interrelated growth of the stock of buildings. These traditional growth drivers are weakening in Western Europe. Nowadays investors, developers and construction firms need a strategy for dealing with the structural shift, conjunctural volatility and growing risks of operations on the real estate market and its different segments. Free market conditions under European constraints do not guarantee that the supply side of the construction market (labour/production capacity and design-buildfinance-maintain know-how and services) matches well with changing demand characteristics. The latter are influenced by building for a changing society and economy, for modernization of the stock of buildings by replacement and renovation and for sustainability.