Experts from the Urban Land Institute unveiled their view of how the rest of the recovery will play out in their Emerging Trends in Real Estate report.

The group highlighted a number of housing trends we can expect to see playing out over the next few years, based on surveys and interviews with real estate developers, investors, lenders, servicers and builders.

Millennials are moving the market, but not as homeowners

Though the so-called Millennial generation has been much-maligned in the media, real estate movers and shakers are increasingly interested in where this generation is headed — quite literally. A number of the cities have seen increased economic activity in the real estate sector led by this generation.

However, this same group isn’t forming new households, and they’re not buying as many homes as their parents’ generation were at their age.

Second-tier cities will lead the recovery next year

Investors, developers and builders are losing some interest in the so-called 24-hour gateway cities and have developed more interested in cities where there are more housing deals to be had.

Real estate recovery still hinges on job growth

The slow pace of job growth as well as income and wage growth is still holding back the real estate recovery and that’s not likely to change quickly.

Many cities have seen strong housing recoveries based on the strength of their economy. Places with low unemployment can expect better recoveries next year, while places still haunted by economic issues won’t.

The “smile investing” philosophy is back

Real estate developers are interested once again in a so-called smile investment philosophy. According to the philosophy, developers and investors start looking at cities in the Northeast and moving south to cities along the Sun Belt and then coming back up to the Northwest. Expect to see more activity in those areas than in the Midwest.

Multi-family apartment building will wane

With rapidly rising demand for apartments during the recession — boosted by increased demand from homeowners-turned-renters — multi-family building surged. But that’s likely to quiet down in 2014, as supply and demand have swapped places — and there may actually have been too much multi-family building in 2013.