Get ready for great boom year of 2015.

The coming year will be a time of epic projects and construction cranes on every corner. We will see millions of square feet of new office high-rises and buildings open across Greater Boston, while thousands of new luxury apartments and a few condos as well, will hit the market.

But 2015 will also be of challenges and turning points.

It will be a year of rising costs, from home values and office rents to construction prices. It will be a year when city and state leaders either come to grips with the Bay State’s long-standing and ever more difficult housing crisis or face another exodus of middle-class and working families to lower-cost markets.

And 2015 will be the year when the rubber hits the road for long-stalled mega projects that finally have a shot at life, including the South Station tower and Don Chiofaro’s proposed waterfront skyscrapers.

After all, the coming year may very well be the peak the current expansion, and if can’t get your project moving now, well then, when will you?

“It certainly looks like it is going to be the year of construction in Greater Boston,” said Lisa Strope, New England research manager for JLL.

Here are some 2015 trends to keep an eye on:

Construction price alert: The coming year could very well turn out to be the peak of the current expansion that began after the end of the Great Recession. Roughly 2.6 million square feet of office space will hit the market in Boston and the suburbs in 2015, well more than double the 1.2 million we saw this year, according to JLL. That number will fall to 2.4 million in 2016.

But all that building is also driving up construction costs, which have surged a good 15 to 20 percent in the Boston area since the end of the Great Recession, according to James Kirby, president of Boston-based Commercial Construction Consulting, who estimates project costs for as living.

And more increases are likely on the way. Steve Wynn’s planned $1.6 billion casino palace in Everett is likely to vacuum up thousands of local hard hats who aren’t already working on all the new towers out there. “I don’t think we need a primer for the pump right now,” Kirby told me in an earlier interview on the impact Wynn’s massive casino project will have on the local construction market.

Rising office rents: Office rents had a breakout year in 2014, rising 10 percent across the entire Boston metro market, according to JLL. The arrival of a couple million square feet of new office space will help slow that trend, though not by all that much, with a projected rent increase of 8 percent in 2015. However, by 2016 the new space will start having a bigger impact, with rents projected to rise by just 4 percent that year, according to the commercial real estate firm.

Higher home prices: Bay State home prices, already some of the highest in the country, will get even higher in 2015. The good news, though, at least for buyers, is that the pace at which prices are rising seems to be slowing. Home prices rose by a relatively modest 2.3 percent through the end of October compared to last year. At this time in 2013, prices had risen 12 percent. Yet it could very well turn out to a be temporary lull, with an improving economy and slowly relaxing credit standards likely to push more buyers into the market. Sam Schneiderman, president of the Massachusetts Association of Buyer Agents, predicts increases ranging from 2 to 10 percent, depending on the neighborhood, town, city or part of the state.

Hinge year for housing crisis: Boston Mayor Marty Walsh has made the construction of more middle-class housing a top priority. Now comes the hard part of identifying where the tens of thousands of new homes and condos Walsh wants built will go in a city where neighborhood development spats can be a blood sport. Walsh has already pegged parts of South Boston and Jamaica Plain as ripe for new housing and will be naming additional housing development zones early in the new year. But the mayor needs to move quickly to open up these areas to builders or risk missing the current business cycle.

Make-or-break for key projects: Don Chiofaro battled for years to get Boston officials to seriously consider his proposal for a pair of condo and office towers next to the New England Aquarium. Now that he has the attention of City Hall, Chiofaro needs to find a way to get his project though the city approval process and get going while the going is good. Texas developer Hines has hopes of finally getting its South Station tower off the ground, but after two decades of talk, action is needed. And John Rosenthal has been pitching plans for almost as long for his proposed Turnpike-spanning development next door to Fenway Park. For Rosenthal, who for the first time has some real backing from the mayor, it’s time to put up or shut up.

All things considered, 2015 should prove to be a very interesting year in Bay State real estate. As always, stay tuned!