After decades of solid growth and development, the global real estate sector faces multiple sources of uncertainty. The prevailing mode is not one of crisis, but instead of divergence between different countries and different segments of the market. In the residential sector, the pace of globalization slows down, but domestic house prices and rents increase. Office occupancy remains low in the commercial sector after the pandemic, but retail and hospitality are resilient. And while buildings are increasingly singled out as a major driver of carbon emissions, energy-efficient solutions and sustainability concerns are now top of mind for both businesses and the government. In this lecture, we look into some of the market forces that shape these developments and seek to understand how academics and real estate professionals can shape the way forward.