Your entire professional career has been connected to the real estate market. How did this connection arise?
In 1983, when my family came to Portugal from Italy, they founded what is now INS Group, taking advantage of their international experience. You could say that, although it was a taste that was instilled in me, as it was a way of generating capital for the family, I began to have a natural interest in the market. At 16, I was renting and selling houses when I had free time.
When I was looking for work, Remax had just arrived in Portugal and I started this project with Pedro Alvarez and four others. At that time I sold a house worth 3 million euros. When my holiday request was denied, the moment I received the cheque I left and went on a trip. As soon as I returned, my family convinced me to work at INS, where I stayed until I was 30. In the meantime, we built an office and tourist centres in Brazil, in Ceará, and I stayed there for a while.
I realized that buying and selling opportunities were always coming from doormen, taxi drivers, and coffee shops. So I designed a business model that would allow anyone to generate clients in the real estate market and control the flow, and be rewarded with a commission. It had great organic growth, with many people registering on the platform. I decided to patent the business and present it to the world. REEVO is growing and is coming to Brazil this month.
At the same time, I started to be chinese overseas africa database invited to more educational activities. I attended Proptech events in NY, Madrid, Paris, Cannes. Because of my know-how and the way I can also help some startups, I was recently invited by the Startup Club to be the person in charge in Portugal and help people who want to create them in the real estate market.
What is REEVO and how can real estate professionals benefit from this network?
REEVO – Real Estate Evolution – is a platform where any person or company can register and create clients in a very simple way, through a QR code. Each registration will become a label that will be placed in strategic places, with the notice that a home is being sold or purchased.
As soon as the customer scans the code, we carry out a very assertive rating through the call center. This rating has been studied with LENAR (the largest construction company in the United States), our partner since 2019. We then refer the customer to the best professionals in the area where the customer is interested.
Once the deal is closed, the person who generated the contact receives a 10% commission notification. These are usually amounts of one or two thousand euros. It is a way to earn some extra money. It is a sustainable method of generating contacts, unlike the “200 flyers a day” that many real estate agents still use. During the first years of the project my main partner in Portugal was JLL and we closed many sales in 2016 and 2017.
REEVO has opened a door that didn't exist before and that I have always thought was very important since I started working: to assure people who are not related to the real estate market that the information they have is of great value and should be rewarded, in a transparent way.
When will REEVO 2 be released?
I think in March. It will be more focused on professionals. As a Proptech mentor , I will create technological partnerships, aggregating all of them into one platform, which will be REEVO 2. It is about creating a real estate ecosystem in which professionals, clients, investment sources and authority figures in the sector collaborate, not only for the development of the real estate market, but also with a focus on sustainability and philanthropy.
In this new version there will be 3 parts: for professionals, for the end client and for society, with a special focus on philanthropy. The objective is to carry out economic development and sustainability actions in Third World countries. We have partnerships with fairly large organisations, which have a series of programmes in which part of the value generated by the real estate market is allocated to these objectives.
For professionals, we will have an academy, to train newcomers to the market, especially here in Portugal. As for the end customer, we will introduce several technological solutions (add-ons) that will help them sell their house.
Never before have ESG policies been so present on the agenda and there are agreements for carbon neutrality by 2050. What is the role of the real estate market and how can there be an almost proactive management of these objectives?
To achieve these goals, the real estate market must change. Starting with the types of building materials and the type of construction that is done, going through 3D options, organic materials, to printers with “not so harmful” materials. It is a sector that generates millions of dollars a year, so at a financial level, everything that allows us to achieve these goals by 2050 must be supported.
This world is not sustainable as it is and we need to regenerate it, giving back to nature what we take from it. We need to design buildings that capture more natural light, for example. There are large developers who are starting to build buildings that produce their own energy, in a sustainable and regenerative way.
