WHAT'S NEXT?: The number of smart homes is expected to grow further and by 2020 it is expected 46.2 million homes in the US and 44.9 million in Europe will be classed as smart homes. By 2022 there could be nearly 500 smart devices that can be connected to a smart home.

• [New] Wearable devices are being used to transform healthcare across all sectors of the industry, whether in hospitals or at home, for all ages and conditions: Global market revenue could reach US$ 67.2 billion by 2030 (from US$ 10.6 billion in 2019).
• [New] Economy Recovery, finds that as water infrastructure deteriorates and service disruptions increase, annual costs to American households due to water and wastewater failures will be seven times higher in 20 years than they are today - from $2 billion in 2019 to $14 billion by 2039.
• [New] The Asia-Pacific region is home to more than half of the world's undernourished people, and with the impacts of COVID-19, the number of hungry people in Southern Asia could rise by nearly a third to 330 million in the next ten years.
• [New] Global leadership is important so that UK can take early advantage of the potential for 5G to create new opportunities for UK businesses at home and encourage inward investment - both of which contribute to the creation of a world-leading digital economy.
• [New] Before the CDC issued a US national moratorium on evictions, through the end of the year, an estimated 30 to 40 million renters were at risk of being forced out of their homes.
• [New] By midcentury, rising seas and greater storm surges could force hundreds of millions of people from homes and cost coastal urban areas more than $1 trillion a year.
• [New] As the number of people aged 65 and over continues to grow, physicians will be able to increasingly monitor elderly patients at home.
• China's smart home market will reach 180 billion yuan in 2018, and the smart home market will reach 357.6 billion yuan in 2020.
• The EY ITEM Club does expect UK housing market activity to gradually improve from early-2021 as the labour market stabilises then starts to modestly improve and the UK's economic recovery continues.
• 53 million smart meters in 30 million homes and businesses will be installed across Great Britain, with an estimated net benefit to the nation of £7.3 billion over the next twenty years.
• 28% of all homes in the US could become smart homes by 2021, channelizing efficiency to next levels.
• The Asia-Pacific region is home to more than half of the world's undernourished people, and with the impacts of COVID-19 the number of hungry people in Southern Asia could rise by nearly a third to 330 million in the next ten years.
• The EY ITEM Club expects housing market activity to gradually improve as 2021 progresses, while the UK's economic recovery gains traction, the labour market starts to recover and consumer confidence improves.
• Despite the current firming in activity and prices, the EY ITEM Club suspects that the UK housing market is likely to come under pressure over the final months of 2020 and start of 2021 when there is likely to be a rise in unemployment.
• For domestic consumption, under the situation of Covid-19, Chinese tourists will stay at home and spend locally when they travel in China.
• UK house prices could be around 3% lower than now at the end of the year.
• In March 2019, the UK Government added to the Buildings Mission by committing to introduce a Future Homes Standard by 2025, for new build homes to be future-proofed with low carbon heating and world leading levels of energy efficiency.
• A strategic government response to the mass unemployment of up to 5 million people predicted in the UK in the coming years, would be to allow them to trade from home.
• Continued advances in technology could play a more important role in the advancement of domestic energy than whoever presides in the White House.
• The £900m for shovel-ready housing and infrastructure projects is expected to deliver up to 45,000 homes, create up to 85,000 jobs and reduce around 65 million kg of CO2 emissions across England.
• More than 300 projects in England will receive a share of the £900m Getting Building Fund, which was announced by prime minister Boris Johnson in June to invest in shovel-ready housing and infrastructure projects.
• Demand continues to run ahead of supply in London, sustaining annual house price growth of 2.5%, and expects market conditions to remain stronger than last year for the rest of 2020.

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Last updated: 19 September 2020