Forces of change shaping the future commercial real estate market in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area in Finland

AbstractThe built environment as a part of society is facing fast and constant changes occurring in the surrounding environment. This is a challenging situation for real estates because their character does not inherently support fast changes and constant development. Nevertheless there are many reasons why it is essential that also commercial real estates are able to answer to development goals set to them by different market actors. This can be achieved by analyzing forces of change affecting the market at this moment. Identifying the forces is important because they form the future real estate market and related land use. When market actors are aware of the forces appearing in their action environment, they are able to notice any new phenomena emerging and quickly adapt their actions and even steer the development to the desired direction. This competitive advantage can benefit both public and private sectors. This study presents the different forces of change affecting the commercial real estate market in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area (HMA) in Finland. The forces of change are studied with a future research method called environmental scanning (ES). The identified forces form a complicated network with many interconnections. Different actors working with real estate and land use issues can benefit from this knowledge in far reaching planning over these issues. Actors are able to make better decisions and prepare themselves for the future, if familiar with the forces of change shaping future real estates and their land use. Because of the constant changes happening in the action environment, the need to foresee and evaluate future requirements and demand set to real estates will only increase in the future