Your flexible friend, the landlord

Rafał Ostrowski, ‘Eurobuild Central & Eastern Europe’: One of your predictions for the property market of tomorrow is that investors will no longer be able to use their investments the same way they would use bonds, that is, as income- generating products. Why do you think this will happen? Antony Slumbers, consultant on the impact of technology on the property market: Typically, at the moment the job of the landlord or developer is to buy or build a building, lease it out to a company for as long as possible, and then sell the investment. The investment, broadly speaking, is treated as a bond, which gives you a certain yield, because you know how much money in ten years the company that rented the space is going to give you. This world for much of the market has now gone. It only really still exists for the top of the market or larger firms. I think for most companies, with under app. 1,000 sqm, you need to be starting to think that your job as a landlord is to convi