Navigating the Complex Labor Landscape of Real Estate and Leasing's Future
As real estate is primed to use AI skills in daily activities, regulatory and compliance skills are at risk of exiting.
The real estate industry faces gaps in both experienced, regulatory-oriented roles, and entry-level, customer service positions as the workforce retires and younger workers are not yet prepared for the complexities of this field. Organizational competitiveness hinges on upskilling, reskilling, and attracting new talent, while modernizing job structures to create a talent pipeline geared toward technology, compliance, and green jobs. Additionally, AI and automation need to be leveraged in contracting, leasing management, and property management.
Risk Factors
2.16
Occupation Risk Score
Real estate and leasing companies are tightly competitive across industries for the same talent in critical shortage: automotive technicians, truck mechanics, and distribution managers; accountants, auditors, and financial managers; civil engineers and construction managers; and especially for clerks, customer service reps, salespeople, and cleaners. Real estate-specific roles, like property managers, operations managers, and real estate brokers, are exiting at alarming rates, with property appraisers among the fastest in this study. Organizations need to take advantage of the lucrative perception of real estate work and engage the younger workforce.
2.22
Market Risk Score
The real estate and leasing industry typically operates by having regional hubs across the country in major metropolitan areas, especially in New York City, N.Y., Los Angeles, Calif., Dallas, Tex., Chicago, Ill., Atlanta, Ga., Boston, Mass., and Washington, D.C., all of which are seeing high risks of a long-term exit of prime-age workers. Additionally, leasing offices and rental facilities span across all markets, causing challenges in accessing both the general workforce for entry-level roles, and the specialized skilled workforce for management, financial, operations, and compliance roles. Despite prime-age workforce shortages, populations are still growing, accelerating supply tension.
1.00
Industry Risk Score
Many roles in real estate and leasing management are attractive, providing a healthy supply of local workforces. Demand for AI skills is highest in office-based professional roles, which the real estate industry is gaining speed in developing. However, facilities services, like janitorial services and building maintenance, cannot be augmented with AI. Real estate and leasing companies can also fill gaps with foreign-born workers, and the industry currently does not have an over-reliance on them. While on-site roles cannot be globalized, corporate positions or shifts toward online consumer-use leasing applications can be.
2.13
AI Skills Gap Score
The AI skills gap risk is largely mitigated by new technologies—apps are quickly becoming the default method of rental selection, point of sale, and contract management. However, there is a slight lag in AI skills among property, real estate, and community association managers, indicating that the people who are face-to-face with tenants and lessees may not have the skills to match the pace of technological advancement. Additionally, the hands-on workers responsible for property upkeep have a significant automation skills gap; real estate companies must ensure they are primed for automated technologies once they become viable solutions.
Real Estate & Leasing Organizations in the Fortune 1000
In the Workforce Risk Outlook, Lightcast found little correlation between workforce risk exposure and their Fortune 1000 ranking. C-suite leaders must align their workforce strategies with their quadrant position, as opposed to assuming their revenue makes them immune.
High Risk/High Scale to Address: Organizations in this quadrant face significant risk of being disrupted in their industry, but also have the financial resources to reduce their risk if they are proactive. These organizations should invest in AI-powered property analytics, expand workforce training in sustainable development practices, and adopt property tech solutions to streamline leasing and management operations.
High Risk/Lower Scale to Address: Organizations within the riskiest quadrant are lower on the competitive ladder and have less resources to address their incoming risk. These organizations must focus on niche markets, automate administrative tasks like lease processing, and build strategic partnerships with developers and technology providers to enhance service offerings without increasing labor costs.
Lower Risk/High Scale to Address: Organizations in this quadrant may not face immediate workforce shortages, but should remain proactive to maintain and reduce their exposure to risk. Investing in smart building technologies, expanding workforce training in digital property management, and enhancing workplace flexibility for employees can help sustain long-term workforce stability.
Lower Risk/Lower Scale to Address: Organizations in this quadrant, if they are proactive, have a chance to be the disruptors. Specifically, they can disrupt industry competitors in the High Risk/High Scale quadrant. They should focus on sustainable real estate development, flexible leasing models, and data-driven market insights to attract tenants and investors while optimizing workforce efficiency.
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Solving Real Estate & Leasing Workforce Management
Talent Analyst
Strategies to Develop Specialized Talent
Enterprises need to evolve specialized career paths, first by mapping their current workforce—retirees and exiting skills, contingent worker skill profiles, and skills gaps. Local and target expansion plans require both population growth data to understand demand, and skilled worker availability insights to ensure supply. Upskilling and reskilling early talent is necessary to ensure advanced real estate knowledge is not lost, so organizations will need to track activity among colleges, vocational schools, and industry organizations to leverage apprenticeships before the retiring workforce exits.
How Property Management Firms are Transforming Roles
A global real estate firm specializing in leasing, project management, property and facilities management, and investment advisory services is using Talent Analyst data to track job demand, skills, salaries, and projected geographic growth. Mapping job titles to standardized occupations, identifying competitors, and monitoring talent movement are unlocking role transformations through career pathing and more effective recruiting. This holistic view provides the competitive edge in talent acquisition, and is driving business decisions about market expansion and client outcomes.
Talent Transform
Skills-Based Strategies to Future-Proof Real Estate
To address emerging technology and sustainability skills gaps, organizations must map skills in smart property management, digital leasing, and tenant services to inform roles impacted by automation. This analysis allows for proactive reskilling efforts, optimizing productivity among labor shortages and offering career paths appealing to displaced tech workers. Organizations must perform gap analyses in skills related to LEED certification, energy management, and green practices, which benefits both talent acquisition and meets emerging expectations among investor and tenant stakeholders.
How Commercial Real Estate is Modernizing Markets
A commercial real estate enterprise operating in over 100 countries needed a global view of skills trends across roles to fill gaps, hire competitively, and better serve its clients. Lightcast Professional Services supplied competitor hiring data and provided insights to evaluate job demand for specific metro areas and the disruptive skills it would need to fill to proactively deliver emerging property management practices. It identified groups of facility workers that needed to be upskilled in sustainability-focused competencies and is rolling out training to meet regulatory and stakeholder expectations.
