Cathie Wood says your house is going to the moon.
Not literally – but bear with me as I connect a few dots.

We’re all trying to make sense of this economy. How can we reconcile a record-high stock market, soaring home equity, and strong consumer spending with our constant anxiety that it’s all about to pop? Self-driving cars and gene editing are thrilling, but sometimes it feels like innovation is just a shiny distraction from the rising price of eggs and coffee.

What does the future really look like, and how can we use that insight to make smarter housing decisions?

Cathie Wood, the chief investment officer of ARK Invest, has built her reputation (and her critics) by betting big on “disruptive innovation.” Her flagship ETF was the top performer in 2020, and the most punished in 2021. But what makes her interesting isn’t the scoreboard. It’s her data-driven conviction that a convergence of technologies – AI, robotics, genomics, energy storage, and blockchain, will multiply productivity across every sector of the economy.

She may be early or wrong on a few stocks, but if she’s even half-right about the compound innovation effect, then trillions in new wealth are about to be created. And that raises the question I care about most: how will that wealth and innovation reshape real estate here in Fairfield County over the next decade?

After all, that’s why people buy real estate: long-term potential.

Warren Buffett bought his home in 1958 and still lives there. He famously says you should buy a house because you want to live in it, not because someone tells you it will appreciate. He calls his $31,500 Omaha home “the third-best investment I ever made – but the intangible return has been priceless.” For Buffett, a home’s value isn’t measured in dollars but in stability, memory, and meaning.

Americans seem to agree. We favor 30-year mortgages and now stay in our homes about 12 years on average – nearly 50 percent longer than a decade ago. Ironically, we change jobs more often than ever, proof that we’re a mobile society craving permanence somewhere.

Real estate, after all, was the original fire-and-forget investment – the one our grandparents held for decades, not something suited to day-trading or momentum plays. So, what can a woman who spends her life modeling the future of innovation teach us about a market built on patience and permanence?

Cathie Wood spoke recently on the “All-In” podcast, presenting a chart that tracks 250 years of innovation, from the steam engine to AI. Each wave of technology, she explained, added between three and eight percentage points to global economic growth. The real takeaway, though, isn’t any single invention. It’s what happens when they converge.

When multiple technologies combine, their impact compounds. The internal combustion engine, electricity, and the telephone, working together, powered America’s explosive growth from 1890 to 1920. Add radio, refrigeration, and air conditioning, and you’ve got the infrastructure that fueled the Florida real estate boom of the 1920s.

The second half of the 20th century was driven by the computer age, from the integrated circuit to the PC, cell phone, and internet, each layering productivity upon the last.

Wood argues we’re entering a similar phase now, but on a much larger scale: fourteen technologies, all accelerating simultaneously. The question isn’t which one will change everything, but how their overlap will reshape every industry, including real estate.

Cathie Wood’s team tracks fourteen technologies moving up their S-curves right now, each powerful alone, but world-changing in combination. Here’s what that could mean for real estate:

1. 3D Printing – Homes printed on-site in days, not months. Fewer workers, less waste, and construction that finally catches up to demand.
2. Reusable Rockets – Lower launch costs mean satellite internet everywhere. Remote towns and islands suddenly become connected, livable, and valuable.
3. Adaptive Robots – Machines that learn on the job will reshape construction. They’ll pour foundations, hang drywall, even maintain properties, cutting costs and risk.
4. Advanced Batteries – Energy independence goes mainstream. Homes that store their own power won’t just be sustainable — they’ll be status symbols.
5. Autonomous Mobility – The 60-minute commute becomes productive time. Suburbs stretch outward as self-driving cars erase the distance penalty.
6. Cloud Computing – Homes become data hubs, with systems that monitor maintenance, schedule repairs, and update value in real time.
7. Artificial Intelligence – AI already matches buyers to homes better than agents ever could. The best Realtors will act more like wealth advisors than salespeople.
8. Intelligent Devices – Every system reports in: HVAC, lighting, water, insurance. A home without smart infrastructure will soon feel as outdated as one without Wi-Fi.
9. Multiomic Technology – Health data meets home data. Buyers will demand “bio-certified” living – clean air, balanced light, and materials proven to boost wellness.
10. Precision Therapies – Healthcare moves home. Medical suites, air purification, and recovery pods make rural estates newly desirable.
11. Programmable Biology – Landscaping evolves from ornamental to functional – living systems that clean air, repel mosquitoes, and feed pollinators.
12. Digital Wallets – Earnest money transfers in seconds, not days. Global buyers purchase properties instantly, without a bank in sight.
13. Smart Contracts – Closings on the blockchain: 24-hour title transfers, fractional ownership, and automated rule enforcement.
14. Cryptocurrencies – Global wealth flows faster than ever. Bitcoin-standard communities and tokenized real estate exchanges turn homes into liquid assets.

You can watch Cathie Wood’s talk from the All-In Summit here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=majPvUyxP6I
If she’s right, Bitcoin hits $1.5 million by 2030, Tesla hits $2,000, and the S&P 500 triples as AI drives an additional $40 trillion in market value – with little or no inflation.
The productivity gains from converging technologies act like a massive supply shock, boosting output per worker and driving down unit costs, more goods, more services, and yes, more housing at lower effective prices. Imagine if we could build homes faster and cheaper; the housing shortage that drives prices higher every year would start to ease. In other words, even as the economy grows by tens of trillions, prices don’t have to rise, because that growth comes from producing things, including homes, cheaper, faster, and better, not from printing more money.

That’s not just a stock story. It’s a wealth story. What happens to real estate when the economy adds $40 trillion in capital and productivity explodes? Your beach house, your starter condo, your family compound, all of it re-prices in a world awash with new money and new ways to live.

But not all real estate will rise at the same rate. In a world flooded with new wealth and falling construction costs, the middle of the market may normalize while the extraordinary becomes priceless. Your New Canaan home — if it’s well located, well designed, and unique — is not a commodity. When everything else gets easier to build, it’s the irreplaceable that holds value: the ocean view, the Manhattan skyline, the antique with a story. Productivity might lower costs, but it also amplifies the premium on location, location, location.

That’s the bridge between Buffett and Cathie Wood.
Buffett built his fortune by betting on permanence. Wood builds hers by betting on acceleration. Real estate sits exactly between the two – a tangible asset in an age of abstraction, a stable store of value in a world about to speed up again.

So, is your house going to the moon? Maybe not literally.
But if Cathie Wood is even half-right, it’s going to be part of a far bigger orbit than you imagined.

John Engel is a broker on The Engel Team at Douglas Elliman and he attended his 40th New Canaan High School reunion last weekend. While some classmates flew in on private jets, what everyone really wanted to talk about was what endures – relationships, purpose, and where they call home. It reminded him that even in a world moving at Cathie Wood speed. the most important investments we make are still the ones that ground us.

Check out John Engel’s Podcast, Boroughs & Burbs, the National Real Estate Conversation here.

Read this article on the New Canaan Sentinel website here.