IT infrastructure becomes a value driver for real estate

We assess commercial real estate on square meters, location, energy label, accessibility, installations and rental price. One infrastructure layer remains strikingly often out of sight: the digital infrastructure of the building. That is becoming harder to justify.

A modern office is no longer just a collection of workstations. Companies run on cloud software, video conferencing, digital telephony, cybersecurity, data and increasingly AI. At the same time, buildings themselves are becoming more digital, with sensors, access control, cameras, building management systems and smart lighting.

The question is therefore not whether IT infrastructure becomes part of the quality of real estate, but how heavily this quality will eventually weigh in rentability, marketability and value.

From square meters to digital capacity

A tenant looking for 2,000 m² of office space today probably looks at accessibility, rental price, energy label, parking and amenities. But that same tenant may be entering into a contract for five or ten years. What will that organization look like digitally by then?

How many processes will run in the cloud by then? How many devices will be connected? What role will AI play? What requirements will the organization set for cybersecurity and continuity? Alongside physical growth space, digital growth space becomes relevant.

The question therefore shifts. No longer just: how many people can work here? But also: can our organization still function digitally here in five years, and can it keep growing?

Fiber present is not the same as future-proof

Real estate brochures often contain one reassuring statement: fiber present. This actually tells the owner, the agent and the tenant remarkably little.

What capacity can actually be delivered? Are multiple providers available? Is there redundancy, and do connections enter the building through physically separate routes? How is the internal backbone set up? Are the ICT rooms suitable, and is expansion possible? And who is responsible for which facility?

A fiber connection is important, but it is only one part of a much larger digital ecosystem. A motorway to the front door has little value when there is only a dirt track behind that door.

A building can have a fiber connection and still be digitally maxed out. Presence says nothing about capacity.

Digital quality affects property value

The influence of IT infrastructure does not have to become visible only in a higher rental price. For an investor, value is also about risk. A building with outdated infrastructure may require additional investment before a modern tenant can move in. A building without redundancy may be less attractive to organizations for which continuity is business critical.

Poor documentation can make upgrades more costly, and outdated building-integrated systems can create cybersecurity risks. That makes IT not just a facility matter, but an asset management issue. The international sector is moving in that direction: digital risks can have consequences for building operations, income and value.

The signal is therefore relevant. If users start to attach more importance to digital quality, it becomes harder to maintain that this infrastructure is not part of the value of real estate.

From technical problem to investment issue

Suppose two office buildings are nearly identical on paper. Both have 5,000 m² of lettable area, energy label A++, a modern climate installation, a good location and comparable rents.

Building A has limited digital documentation, one connection route, outdated internal cabling and few options to scale up easily. Building B has high-quality cabling, multiple connectivity options, redundancy, professional ICT rooms and sufficient digital growth space.

Will those buildings still be equally attractive in ten years? If the answer is no, a follow-up question automatically arises: should that digital quality already be factored into investment decisions today?

The next step in the maintenance plan

Property owners reserve budget through their long-term maintenance planning for roofs, facades, elevators, climate installations and lighting. But where does digital infrastructure fit into that plan?

Data cabling ages. Technical spaces need to be adapted. Smart building technology continues to develop. Cybersecurity requirements change, and tenants set higher demands for availability and connectivity. A future-proof long-term maintenance plan therefore looks not only at physical and energy-related maintenance, but also at the digital life cycle of the building.

Because deferred digital maintenance can ultimately lead to necessary investments just as much as physical deferred maintenance. AI makes that discussion more urgent. Not because every application demands enormous bandwidth, since much of the computing power sits in external data centers, but precisely because of that, organizations become more dependent on reliable connections, cloud infrastructure and continuity.

How do you value something that is barely visible?

There lies a problem. An appraiser can see the energy label. An agent can count the number of parking spaces. A tenant can see how many square meters are available. But digital infrastructure sits largely behind walls, above ceilings, in technical rooms and in contracts with providers.

Moreover, the technology speaks a different language than real estate. Terms such as CAT6A, singlemode fiber, PoE, backbone and redundant risers mean little to a user. What a user wants to know is much simpler:

• What is being delivered here digitally?
• What can I do with it?
• What do I still need to invest myself?
• Can my organization grow into this space?

That is exactly where the role of the IT-label lies. It does not determine what a building is worth and does not replace an appraisal, a technical standard or a cybersecurity audit. It makes a missing building quality visible, understandable and comparable. A certified specialist assesses the relevant digital infrastructure and translates the findings into a simple delivery level.

The delivery levels at a glance

This gives an appraiser additional property information, an investor insight into possible digital investments, an agent an understandable language, and a tenant a clearer picture of what is actually being delivered. If you want to see the methodology in detail, the page on classification from PREMIUM to SHELL explains how the levels relate to one another.

From blind spot to building feature

An IT1 building is not automatically worth a fixed percentage more than an IT2 building. Property value does not work that simply. But when digital infrastructure influences user demand, rentability, required investments, continuity and risk, it becomes increasingly difficult to argue that this infrastructure is not part of the quality of the real estate.

This adds one more question to the familiar ones about energy label, technical condition, rental potential and location: what can this building handle digitally? If you want to make that question concrete for your own portfolio, take a look at what the IT-label for property owners maps out, or get in touch to discuss a classification. Future-proof real estate is not only sustainable, accessible and flexible, it is also digitally future-proof.