Casafari x alfredo valente – iad technology to think about the real estate market
Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2024 5:11 am
We sat down with the CEO of IAD Portugal to talk about what the digital revolution has brought to the real estate market and what's new on the web for 2022.
Alfredo Valente is currently at the head of IAD Portugal, the largest network of independent real estate agents in the country, which was the first international experience of the French brand.
Here he spoke to us about expansion plans, how technology facilitates human relations and the need to think. With his foundations in sociology, he balances the necessary digitalisation and face-to-face relations, in what is a business that still closes face to face.
How has the IAD Network evolved over the last five years in Portugal and internationally in general?
In Portugal, it was an incredible adventure. When I arrived at IAD, we were the first and only international IAD experience, therefore the first export of the model outside France. This leaves an indelible mark on the first half of my experience with IAD, because the difficulties in making the model work were very great, especially internally.
In the first year, it was impossible to raise funds or close a transaction because the systems were not adapted to operate outside France. By the end of 2018, most of the work was done, although we were always trying to evolve the systems. The foundations were in place, and it was the moment when the network began to grow and become more professional, in quality and quantity.
Today we are at a turning point where we are no longer a medium-sized company but are now a large company. We currently have 740 real estate agents in Portugal.
Since then, have you noticed any real technological evolution?
We are very concerned about the quality of the service we provide to the client, but here there is an internal client, which is the network of consultants and the experience of this user, which is also fundamental. When I say that it is born from the inside out, it is precisely in relation to this technology that we provide to our consultants. As a result, they can deliver better work to the end client.
Clearly, today the value of the technological component is highly valued, with HD videos, virtual tours, professional photos and the ability of the real estate agent to understand what the client wants to see, based on the data.
A real revolution is brewing, but I think we are only at the beginning.
Here, CASAFARI and all data and AI platforms can see that we are at the beginning of this digitalization.
This evolution is clear in digital, but are we still in the first phase?
The legislation we have is a bit castrating. For example, the regulations on writing by videoconference are only a few months old. The legislation still requires us to ratify a digital signature through a mobile key or digital certificate. There is a part of the technological revolution that depends purely on the legislator and takes more time.
The rest depends a lot on us, but we see around us in this mediation ecosystem a number of Protechs, Fintechs and a lot of creative capacity. IAD was established in 2008, there was chinese overseas africa database no Spotify, Airbnb, just to name a few. In 13 years we have radically changed the way of doing business, we were the first to do real estate mediation without a physical network of agencies. I think that in the next 6 years the real estate market will change radically. Here we want to bring simplicity to the process, as if you were renting a holiday home today.
Does IAD have a disruptive role in terms of technology in this real estate market that was so analogue until a few years ago?
Many people are already innovating today, but I think we are one step ahead, we are developing the technology of the “day after tomorrow”, because the technology of tomorrow has already been created. We say that a lot. That ability to find that which breaks with the logic of established routines is the real challenge and one of the components of our DNA.
What's different about this "day after tomorrow" technology?
It is truly focused on the user experience. It will never stop being a deal that is closed between two people, one selling and one buying . I think that will never change in the real estate market.
So everything has to be focused on the experience of those business components. We pay a lot of attention to the experience of our consultant, everything has to be easy. What they do now through mass and automatic dissemination did not exist two years ago. The seller and buyer client still does not take full advantage of this technological revolution, because there are still many legal bottlenecks.
How do you see this digital-in-person relationship occurring in the real estate market?
We may think of it as a hyper-rational transaction, because it is often the largest purchase of a person’s life, but it is a purchase that has a lot of emotion, that comes with that physical feeling of when you walk into a house and think “that’s my house,” so it always closes in person and I think it will continue to close.
Until then, we manage to avoid “unjustified” visits by using technology. After that, we work to alleviate the bureaucratic hell that the buyer faces. We have to simplify.
In 2021 you predicted IAD's expansion to the US. How is this process going?
Unfortunately, Covid stood in the way of that goal. For many months it was not even possible to travel to the United States, we made progress as much as we could and now the decision has been made that we are going to expand to the United States as a continent and not as a country. We are going to conquer state by state. The first will probably be Florida, for several reasons, one of them being the proximity to Mexico, where we have been since 2020. From there we will progressively cover other states until we have an important strategic position.
It is a real estate market that has many disruptive players, many more than in Europe, since the old continent is much more conservative in this area. It is a process that is advancing at a good pace. Most likely, it will be implemented this year.
Is there any IAD news you would like to share with us?
Here in Portugal we are going to carry out a big brand activation campaign and we will have a big investment starting in April. We recently opened our new facilities, Avenida da Boavista, in Porto.
In international terms, promoting international expansion, beyond expansion in the US. A very big bet was the creation of a department, the IAD studio, which is precisely where we reflect on the tools of tomorrow and we will see revolutionary things at the end of 2022.
In 2021, IAD announced record revenue. What is it like to grow in times of pandemic?
From an operational point of view, it was positive. On the one hand, IAD (which stands for “Real Estate At Home”) was born to operate remotely, so when we were confined, it did not affect us in terms of logistics.
Alfredo Valente is currently at the head of IAD Portugal, the largest network of independent real estate agents in the country, which was the first international experience of the French brand.
Here he spoke to us about expansion plans, how technology facilitates human relations and the need to think. With his foundations in sociology, he balances the necessary digitalisation and face-to-face relations, in what is a business that still closes face to face.
How has the IAD Network evolved over the last five years in Portugal and internationally in general?
In Portugal, it was an incredible adventure. When I arrived at IAD, we were the first and only international IAD experience, therefore the first export of the model outside France. This leaves an indelible mark on the first half of my experience with IAD, because the difficulties in making the model work were very great, especially internally.
In the first year, it was impossible to raise funds or close a transaction because the systems were not adapted to operate outside France. By the end of 2018, most of the work was done, although we were always trying to evolve the systems. The foundations were in place, and it was the moment when the network began to grow and become more professional, in quality and quantity.
Today we are at a turning point where we are no longer a medium-sized company but are now a large company. We currently have 740 real estate agents in Portugal.
Since then, have you noticed any real technological evolution?
We are very concerned about the quality of the service we provide to the client, but here there is an internal client, which is the network of consultants and the experience of this user, which is also fundamental. When I say that it is born from the inside out, it is precisely in relation to this technology that we provide to our consultants. As a result, they can deliver better work to the end client.
Clearly, today the value of the technological component is highly valued, with HD videos, virtual tours, professional photos and the ability of the real estate agent to understand what the client wants to see, based on the data.
A real revolution is brewing, but I think we are only at the beginning.
Here, CASAFARI and all data and AI platforms can see that we are at the beginning of this digitalization.
This evolution is clear in digital, but are we still in the first phase?
The legislation we have is a bit castrating. For example, the regulations on writing by videoconference are only a few months old. The legislation still requires us to ratify a digital signature through a mobile key or digital certificate. There is a part of the technological revolution that depends purely on the legislator and takes more time.
The rest depends a lot on us, but we see around us in this mediation ecosystem a number of Protechs, Fintechs and a lot of creative capacity. IAD was established in 2008, there was chinese overseas africa database no Spotify, Airbnb, just to name a few. In 13 years we have radically changed the way of doing business, we were the first to do real estate mediation without a physical network of agencies. I think that in the next 6 years the real estate market will change radically. Here we want to bring simplicity to the process, as if you were renting a holiday home today.
Does IAD have a disruptive role in terms of technology in this real estate market that was so analogue until a few years ago?
Many people are already innovating today, but I think we are one step ahead, we are developing the technology of the “day after tomorrow”, because the technology of tomorrow has already been created. We say that a lot. That ability to find that which breaks with the logic of established routines is the real challenge and one of the components of our DNA.
What's different about this "day after tomorrow" technology?
It is truly focused on the user experience. It will never stop being a deal that is closed between two people, one selling and one buying . I think that will never change in the real estate market.
So everything has to be focused on the experience of those business components. We pay a lot of attention to the experience of our consultant, everything has to be easy. What they do now through mass and automatic dissemination did not exist two years ago. The seller and buyer client still does not take full advantage of this technological revolution, because there are still many legal bottlenecks.
How do you see this digital-in-person relationship occurring in the real estate market?
We may think of it as a hyper-rational transaction, because it is often the largest purchase of a person’s life, but it is a purchase that has a lot of emotion, that comes with that physical feeling of when you walk into a house and think “that’s my house,” so it always closes in person and I think it will continue to close.
Until then, we manage to avoid “unjustified” visits by using technology. After that, we work to alleviate the bureaucratic hell that the buyer faces. We have to simplify.
In 2021 you predicted IAD's expansion to the US. How is this process going?
Unfortunately, Covid stood in the way of that goal. For many months it was not even possible to travel to the United States, we made progress as much as we could and now the decision has been made that we are going to expand to the United States as a continent and not as a country. We are going to conquer state by state. The first will probably be Florida, for several reasons, one of them being the proximity to Mexico, where we have been since 2020. From there we will progressively cover other states until we have an important strategic position.
It is a real estate market that has many disruptive players, many more than in Europe, since the old continent is much more conservative in this area. It is a process that is advancing at a good pace. Most likely, it will be implemented this year.
Is there any IAD news you would like to share with us?
Here in Portugal we are going to carry out a big brand activation campaign and we will have a big investment starting in April. We recently opened our new facilities, Avenida da Boavista, in Porto.
In international terms, promoting international expansion, beyond expansion in the US. A very big bet was the creation of a department, the IAD studio, which is precisely where we reflect on the tools of tomorrow and we will see revolutionary things at the end of 2022.
In 2021, IAD announced record revenue. What is it like to grow in times of pandemic?
From an operational point of view, it was positive. On the one hand, IAD (which stands for “Real Estate At Home”) was born to operate remotely, so when we were confined, it did not affect us in terms of logistics.