Every industry is changing, but in the real estate industry this process started late. Sahar Zabler, Business Unit Manager Construction & Real Estate at HAGER Executive Consulting, explains why the industry has been slow to respond to digitalization and what opportunities and challenges it presents.
What fascinates you about real estate?
What I find very exciting is the market dynamic. Real estate is probably by far the fastest and most agile sector at the moment. At the same time, as we have seen through Corona, real estate is crisis-resistant. If office real estate doesn’t do particularly well, interests and usage classes shift and people focus more on the residential or logistics sector.
The real estate industry is undergoing fundamental change. Digitalization – keyword: digital twins or PropTech – is also in full swing here. How has this changed your job?
The real estate and construction industry is generally rather conservative. When I look around within our portfolio at HAGER, real estate is one of the business units that started digitization by far the latest. We are still relatively at the beginning. What has changed in recent months and what I personally find very exciting is a changed corporate landscape. Many new players have joined the ranks of companies and start-ups that we have now been able to acquire as new customers. In general, many young, dynamic companies are entering the market here. This is otherwise only seen in the IT sector. In the past, there were the classic, well-known companies, sometimes they merged, sometimes one went bankrupt, there wasn’t much more movement. Transformation and disruptive processes have created many new positions here.
What does this mean for the recruitment market? In which areas are there new job profiles?
First of all, there is a shift in competencies within companies. In the past, for example, IT topics were often outsourced. This is no longer so easy in times of digital transformation. These jobs can already be outsourced. Just seven or eight years ago, we rarely recruited people with a digital profile. Compared to other industries, this is all pretty new. That’s why my job with HAGER’s digital DNA is interesting. It brings together two specialists and the relevant expertise. New jobs are emerging in BIM management, lean construction and prop tech, for example. The latter is interesting, for example, for business graduates who want to specialize within a company and reposition themselves thematically.
What do you think are the most promising technological innovations in the real estate sector? And what might be overestimated?
First of all, it is important to understand that each segment within the construction and real estate industry has a different focus. Real estate management requires different technical solutions than those that involve a faster process within the realization phase. This means that the requirements are very different. But one thing applies to all of them: buildings should be used more efficiently, and secondly, the topic that overshadows everything is sustainability. The question here is how the real estate sector can contribute to climate protection and create added value through the intelligent use of resources.
How do you actually walk through cities? Do you scan the buildings and make mental notes?
Yes, it really is a kind of occupational disease. However, I don’t proceed like an architect or civil engineer. I don’t think: ‘High ceilings, that’s really expensive’ – like a building contractor would. Or vice versa, like an architect: ‘Oh, nice, high ceilings’. I scan it more according to criteria such as: ‘A client of mine built this. Or I know the developer, the investor or the architect. This is particularly the case with the so-called core properties in the A cities. These are the top 7 in Germany: Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Cologne, Stuttgart and Munich. They are simply on the radar.
Corona (sorry, we have to talk about it one last time) has also developed a new dynamic. For the first time, large cities are losing inhabitants or have a negative population trend. Is this a trend that will continue?
We have indeed noticed that urban centers are becoming less attractive as places to live. But we are starting from a high level here. Conurbations are still in demand. Culture, leisure, entertainment – in other words, everything that falls into the after-work category – will tend to take place in urban areas. You can’t just move a museum from Berlin to Potsdam. So this attraction will remain. The situation is different with private residences. Do I have to live in the city center if I am increasingly working from home anyway? In this respect, outlying areas are becoming more attractive. This shift was already underway before coronavirus. One example: in 2019, 15 mayors of the Vorpommern-Greifswald district promoted their region in the capital. Instead of paying high rents for cramped living space, they enticed people with spacious plots of land, large houses and unobstructed views. This can even work if there is an appropriate infrastructure, i.e. if you are well connected to the metropolis.
What do you prefer? City or country?
Personally, I’m not a country person. I spent some time in Texas the year before last. That was the deepest province, you had to drive 15 minutes by car to buy a liter of milk. It’s often the same in Germany, we’re not pioneers in this respect. I don’t have to live in a pedestrian zone, but it’s important to me that I have a certain infrastructure.
Are there any particular blogs or podcasts that people should listen to if they are interested in real estate?
What we in the industry always read, of course, is the real estate newspaper. It’s like our bible. But what else? It’s important for us to know things before others do. And if it’s already a topic in a podcast or blog, it’s already late for us…
We’ve already talked about occupational illnesses. What is your trade secret? Where and how do you find out?
For us, it’s about having a head start in terms of knowledge. That’s why a good network is immensely important. For example, you find out that a new CEO position is to be filled or that company X is merging with company Y. Having first-hand information at a very early stage is worth its weight in gold. Conversely, this means that discretion is very, very important. This is crucial for personnel consulting anyway, but it is especially true for the real estate sector. We are like a family. We know each other, as they say.
What does diversity actually look like? Is real estate still as strongly male-dominated as one would assume?
It depends, you can’t generalize. If you look at the site managers who coordinate the construction site with helmets and boots, 99 percent of them are definitely men. That’s still the case. On the other hand, there are a lot of women, especially in traditional property management. Overall, I would say that the industry is becoming more female and that more women are taking on positions within the real estate sector.
Learn more about Sahar Zabler
