• Balancing competing demands in experience delivery - The top-ranked experience drivers are safety and convenience, together with uniqueness and fun, highlighting the growing challenges of delivering often competing demands.

• Personalization focuses on welcoming environments, human interaction and lifestyle factors - Growing demand for personalization in real estate requires developers and occupiers to integrate lifestyle factors, branding, technology and interactions for hospitality inspired spaces that are more personal and memorable.

• Wellness and ethical sourcing are leading sustainability preferences - Sustainability is of growing importance, but people value tangible sustainability factors the most, prioritizing health and wellness, green spaces and ethical sourcing.
  

• People seek AI and technology that enhances, rather than distracts, from experience - AI and technology integration are seen as enablers for improved urban living and day-to-day activity, but consumers still prioritize in-person interactions.
  
  

Expectations of ‘experience’ in the built environment continue to evolve as a central value driver for investments. Experience factors in real estate are interconnected and multifaceted, encompassing not just the quality and atmosphere of spaces, but how well interactions and events take place within them. JLL’s 2025 Experience Matters research draws from data collected from 12,000 respondents across 19 markets and 64 cities to provide insights into priorities and opportunities for the real estate sector.

Experience factors are a key component in development strategies focused on achieving premium rental values and enhanced returns on investments. For corporate occupiers, experience-led design can support talent attraction, increased footfall and spend, and consumer and employee satisfaction. As this becomes more commonplace, the expectations on existing assets are also rising, with experience emerging as a key factor in obsolescence risks.

Globally, expectations are high. Two-thirds of people globally expect the places and spaces where they live, work and play, to provide more enjoyment, diverse activities, and add value to the time they spend there. Consumer willingness to pay premiums for high-quality experiences has also grown, from 65% in 2024 to 69% in 2025, with income and generational factors indicating this will continue.

While many experience factors are now accepted baseline requirements, such as environmental performance or quality of design, others are shifting or evolving in response to wider economic or social factors. In 2025, eight priority areas have been identified that reflect underlying sentiment in experience expectations globally. These highlight opportunities for real estate developers, investors and occupiers to prioritize interventions or investment targeted at increased footfall, talent attraction or consumer spend. 

A nuanced understanding of technology is emerging from end-users, while eco-consciousness is a growing driver in emerging economies and younger generations. Personalization has become increasingly common in products and retail in recent years, and that is now translating into broader expectations on real estate as consumers prioritize places that are lifestyle focused (wellness, eco-brands, etc.), provide choice and flexibility and reflect local culture and identity.

Consumers increasingly view spaces as extensions of their personal identity, values and aspirations, and this is driving personalization trends. Driven by shifting expectations across demographics, younger and mid-aged generations are curating lifestyles that reflect values around family, ethics and community contribution rather than simply buying products. 

As personalization has become increasingly common in products and retail in recent years, this is now seen in broader expectations in places and spaces. 69% choose places that align to their personal values over convenience or price and 74% like to visit brands that recognize them as a customer and personalize their products or experience. Technology is pivotal in enabling more personalized interactions with spaces, and AI solutions present opportunities for developers and occupiers as 63% of people report that AI in entertainment venues will enhance personalization and enjoyment in the future.

Premium positioning now requires clear lifestyle differentiation, as consumers prioritize ethical sourcing, local businesses and personalized events, and a clear trend is emerging for places that are locally connected and support social connection. 

This means real estate needs to consider how it can use a combination of technology, brand strategy and programming to create spaces that are more hospitality focused, with welcoming environments and human interaction for more personal and memorable experiences associated with real estate.

Our data reveals consistent patterns across global markets, with value-driven indicators showing remarkable stability across age groups, suggesting this trend will strengthen as younger generations mature into their peak spending years. 

Personalization preferences differ considerably by generation, and Millennial consumers are driving lifestyle affirmation trends in the places they visit, as they have both purchasing power and established identity preferences. 79% of those aged 35-44 years prefer to visit brands that personalize their experience, compared to the average of 74%. This group also expects more bespoke activities in the places they visit, as 72% expect retail spaces to provide events and in-store experiences.

Recent global research from JLL Design confirms this desire for personalization in the retail environment, specifically – and even hyper-localization based on community or culture. 

For corporate occupiers, employees expect their workspaces to meet their personal preferences for flexibility and greater choice of spaces, while also delivering welcoming and vibrant work environments. This applies to location also, as 74% of full-time workers in this research say they prefer to ‘shop and socialize after work around my workplace’, seeking choice and personalization in their workspace neighborhoods. Considering ‘street to seat’ experience for employees in location strategies will become increasingly important not only in head offices or CBDs but also in secondary locations.

Sustainable developments have primarily been driven by regulation and energy efficiency requirements; however, a growing concern for environmental and social sustainability across consumers, employees and residents now influences sustainable design choices in the built environment. 

Consumer-led sustainability priorities center on a ‘proximity effect’ as people value tangible sustainability initiatives such as green spaces and biophilic design, or local sourcing and community connection.

This proximity effect reveals sustainability factors which people directly interact with score higher than perceived abstract environmental commitments. Local sourcing (68%) outperforms eco-conscious brands (66%), suggesting that consumers value tangible community connection, while the importance of wellbeing and green spaces near workplaces is the most important factor overall, with 73% agreeing. 

Health and wellness are top priorities for people, increasingly driving consumer decisions on where to live and visit, with direct impact on requirements for ‘destination spaces’ in cities, neighborhoods and workplaces. With 71% of respondents agreeing it's important to live in a healthy city and 68% ranking health & wellness as an important factor that influences their choice of place for different activities, wellness trends continue to reshape real estate. 

Reflecting wider trends in the wellness consumer sector, younger generations are more health conscious are driving this, with 76% of those aged 25-34 years prioritizing healthy cities and 71% ranking health and wellness the top factors for the places they visit. 

Developers and occupiers should focused on integrating features that support physical health, mental wellbeing and social health in building design and placemaking. 68% agree that health and wellness is extremely or very important in choosing where they visit for leisure and entertainment, and 64% agree it is extremely or very important for retail amenities. In addition to the inclusion of health-focussed brands, developments should consider careful choices of material finishes and greenery, active design principles – encouraging movement through design features – and community spaces for enhancing social engagement.

In workplaces, health and wellbeing requires more holistic approaches that consider not just wellness amenities in offices but designing for lower stress environments and enhance social interaction. Recent JLL research shows that mental wellness and burnout risk are top concerns for employees worldwide in 2025; 77% of full-time workers surveyed in this research think green spaces near their workplace improves wellbeing. Considering the wider impacts of workplace design wellbeing alongside locational and amenity factors is required for occupiers to meet the expectations and needs of employees.