As the global economy is somewhat split on growth - China's growth pace has slowed to record levels, Europe is stuck in a rut and issues like Ebola and terrorism still plague the world - a new report forecasts the future of global real estate.
The latest study by Reportlinker, a major award-winning research firm, doesn't just shed light on the housing market of the future, but also gives us a retrospective view of the past conditions - gathering data from 2003, 2008 and 2013 - and how they could affect the future. The report only focuses on housing demand and construction growth.
The report predicts demand for new housing units to spike by 3.2 percent by 2018. It indicates that even though the world population is expected to decrease by the forecast period, household size will expand, which in turn will improve demand for new housing units.
Multifamily units will be in more demand than single-family homes, the research prophesizes. A rural exodus to more urban areas is expected in the Asia Pacific region and also with the size of families diminishing by the day, construction on multifamily homes will increase 3.5 percent until 2018.
While the developed countries are expected to post stellar gains in demand, The Middle East, Africa and the Asia Pacific areas are poised to see the most growth in construction activity.
"The Asia/Pacific region, led by China, is projected to be home to over three-fifths of the new dwellings constructed in the world in 2018. Between2013 and 2018, new unit construction will increase by 4.8 million units to 38.5million on 2.7 percent annual growth. New dwelling construction in the Africa/Mideast region is expected to reach 13.0million in 2018 on 3.7 percent annual growth, with absolute gains of over 2.1million units, supported by above average population growth and household formation," the report explained.
Read more on the 2015 economy predictions here.
The U.S. economy is now on the right track, according to several reports. Some experts believe the United States has already recovered.
"I think we've recovered - that's the message. We've recovered all the ground lost in many of the economic metrics that we'd look at for growth in terms of jobs. So, we've gone beyond the recovery phase. We are in the growth phase now. The economy is well ahead of where it was (when the economy went into major recession in 2008)," Shaun Osborne, chief currency strategist at TD Securities, said at the Columbia World Affairs Council.
But others say there's more to the recovery. In fact, analysts at UBS predict the recovery to extend until 2016.
"With the Fed's QE program terminating in the current Q4 (14), the economy finally will be "on its own." Continuation of the momentum initiated by expansive stabilization policies will entail various legacy effects of earlier growth," Maury Harris of UBS was quoted by the Business Insider.
