Century 21 is a real estate company with a large presence in several countries around the world, leader in the field of Real Estate. The Argentinian Roberto Vivaldoafter having been the founder and president of Century 21 Argentina, now has the responsibility of the operation in a dozen countries of America, where the brand is present: Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia and Paraguayan.
Visiting in Montevideo, Vivaldo received scope.com in a coquettish office located on the boulevard, one of the four that the multinational installed in the country with the aim of continuing to expand.
— What is the origin of the company and what are you betting now on its growth?
— Century 21 is a company that originally did business in California, United States, and it grew rapidly. Today it is in 86 countries of the world with the same criteria that it had 50 years ago, and since 2 years ago we were in Uruguay. As part of a new leadership in South America and Latin America, Uruguay starts being the pivotal player within this great region.
This is a country that, in the short term that is operating within the network, already generated the highest growth in the last year in what is income from commissions, for example, and also in something that is not a minor issue, which is the productivity per agent that all the offices that are in Uruguay have.
— What do you think Uruguay has for that?
— I believe that Uruguay is consolidated today in a Brilliant legal system within the region, is the economy with the greatest middle-class consciousness. The other important indicator is the financial system that has the clarity of operating with lines of credit as it is operated in Uruguay, which makes all this place it in a place of preponderance in the region. It is no longer a “bubble” as it was before, at least for Argentines who migrated investment to Uruguay when in Argentina the indicators were not so attractive.
What happens is that that Argentine also decides to live in Uruguay and that added another value to it. That is the quality of life indexmeasured in comparative terms with countries in the region, which is also above average and makes it a place to live.
Today they have the best architects in the region, the best developers are in Uruguay, the best regional players are betting on attracting their developments to the country and that is the perfect equation.
— What, then, are the projects in Uruguay?
— We are now in our fourth office here, but our idea is to grow into two more offices by the end of the year. The presence in 86 countries makes us expand the possibility of doing business. For example, someone who sells his house for work reasons and goes to work in the United States, we can also do the business of locating the house there and selling the property upside down, people who come to live in Uruguay, we sell your property.
So, beyond the four offices, we attract a lot of business opportunities, also to pull the flow of funds that come from disposing of properties, for example. I believe that the added value that we have as a brand is the power of our network, that of interaction.
— Is Uruguay positioning itself as an investment destination beyond the so-called “crack” at the political level?
— It is a country that knew how to maintain the political stability, in terms of the fact that there was a radical change in political guidelines very recently and Uruguay knew how to maintain fundamental policies that are different from the rest of the Latin American countries. Today, except for Peru, which with a complicated socio-political context continues to grow but does not attract investment, I believe that Uruguay is the country that is best in view of the futureand not to mention at present with respect to the rest of the countries in the region.
— How are you managing the profitability of the business, from the decision to expand?
— We have already been operating in Uruguay and we have a profitability for that reason, what we decided in this second stage is reinvest 100% of profits of our operation in all that is the development of the brand, to put the accelerator now that the offices have been operating for 2 years. The good thing is that Uruguay started in a totally adverse context of a pandemic and, nevertheless, everything that it grew grew.
We are going to be showing our brand in the main points in the corridor of east point and Montevideo. We are just establishing joint work strategies, supporting corporate events, when there are exhibitions related to the real estate sector, being there, and also promoting the theme of sport that we like very much.
The office where we are now has more than 70 people who come together every day to develop real estate businesses and those 70 people have changed their lifestyle thanks to this business. They found that in this business they can not only survive, but also grow economically.
The team
Today the Century 21 Uruguay team is made up of 60 associated agents and a base of 1,000 properties. Another differential is its interconnected platform, which has an integrated CRM for managing customer relationships.
Source: Ambito
