Key Takeaway: Real Estate Tech

Key Takeaway: Stephen Sheldon of William Blair indicates that while residential real estate remains at a transactional bottom, commercial firms like JLL and CBRE have evolved into high-quality, resilient businesses with 50% to 70% recurring profits. He highlights a major pending pickup in capital markets and identifies JLL, FirstService ($FSV), and The Real Brokerage ($REAX) as top picks. While AI poses disruption risks to residential listing distribution for players like Zillow, Sheldon notes that proprietary data keeps commercial brokers essential and that data center growth provides a natural hedge against AI-driven office space reductions.