A new report from the Urban Land Institute and PwC takes a close look at the biggest current and ongoing trends facing North American real estate investors.

And let me tell you: Its a doozy.

The 107-page tome is full of charts, graphs, expert insights, and hundreds of valuable data points. Its definitely not a read-in-one-sitting document, but its brimming with golden nuggets of info that any forward-thinking real estate investor should have.

Dont have time to read the report? Ive got you covered. Ive combed the document and pulled out the top seven trends youll want on your radar.

Investor competition is on the rise, and it calls for a more creative approach to property selection.

As the report explains, "The competition to find investments that meet the return requirements of a growing investor pool has resulted in looking to new and more complex methods to find markets and property sectors that may fall outside the traditional size and growth metric."

In short, investors need to specialize and focus on niche-level opportunities. The report specifically mentions specialty markets like:

Youll even find detailed city-by-city recommendations in many of these categories at the bottom of the report.

The main takeaway? ULI and PwC recommend that investors dive deep to discover "pearls of great value" in markets theyre considering. "Specialization has become the hallmark of many professional fields, and real estate is no exception," the report reads.

Urban areas have long been a haven for the live-work-play lifestyle. Residents want walkable commutes, easy access to housing, and 24-hour amenities. But today, its not just major city centers providing this way of life.

The 24-hour live-work-play approach has officially entered suburbia, with smaller cities like Charleston, South Carolina, and Jacksonville, Florida, joining the ranks. Its stretching from Brooklyn into New Jersey towns like Hoboken and Maplewood and from Manhattan into Yonkers and New Rochelle.

And its not slowing down, either. According to the report, investors should expect more communities to embrace the 24-hour (or at least 18-hour) lifestyle: "If the live-work-play formula could revive inner cities a quarter-century ago, there is no reason to think that it will not work in suburbs with the right bones and the will to succeed."

Rising temperatures will impact investing from all angles, influencing where people migrate, the infrastructure required, and overall building costs. As the report puts it, "Without intervention, the current and potential future impacts of extremely high temperatures -- on real estate developments, infrastructure, and the economy -- could be substantial."

Some stats to note about this trend:

Seattle is a great example of just how hard rising temperatures can hit investors. Before 2010, a mere 6% of Seattle rental properties had central air conditioning. Now, a full quarter of them do.

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7 Real Estate Investing Trends to Watch - Motley Fool