The year 2025 seems an appropriate waypoint to compile a post-mortem, analysing the real estate performance scorecard for the first quarter of the 21st century. It has certainly been eventful.

But investment is about the future, not the past. For a forward-looking pre-mortem checklist for 2050, though — to better assess what is on the real estate investment agenda for the next 25 years — we must understand where we have been and where we are now.

Where have we been?

The 21st century has been a rodeo ride so far. The era commenced with the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 followed by the dot-com bust (2001–2002). The global financial crisis (2008–2009) and the European sovereign debt crisis (2009–mid-2010s) followed soon after. Then came the global COVID-19 pandemic (2019–2022). Through this period, activist central bankers have tested interest-rate settings at the zero lower bound (ZLB), something we were taught in 20th-century