This paper presents new stylized facts and time series on global real estate returns and inflection points over centuries, by combining new historical primary data with machine learning approaches and econometrics. I show that global real estate total returns are trend stationary, and secularly increasing since circa 1560 -- with returns showing few structural breaks, and faster mean reversion compared to sovereign bonds. Decomposing returns, I show that rental yields display a long-run downward trend, as do real mortgage rates, while capital gains show an increasingly dominant role in total returns. Against the new data, it is now possible to contextualize real estate in the wider long-run asset universe: notably, the new evidence from real estate suggests a broader fundamental asset universe trend towards the "low expected returns" environment of the early 21st century -- real sovereign interest rates declined alongside real estate variables, but the former did so more aggressively and from around 1600 appears to command a "safety premium".