AROUND three dozen key European estate agents have gathered in Malaga to discuss the future of real estate.
By Barry Tabrizi
The Gestores Inmobiliarios Profesionales Europeos (GIPE) conference aims to guarantee a ‘safer future’ for both buyers and agents in Spain.
“It is impossible to look at the future and growth of Andalucia without taking real estate into account,” Alfred van Krimpen, GIPE’s president, told the opening event.
During the two-day conference, attendees assembled in one of Malaga’s oldest buildings to speak about a future in which property transactions are carried out in a ‘more harmonised, organised, uniform and regulated way across the EU’.
The summit was shaped by the high-level guests who are spending their time in a mix of group sessions examining the challenges facing the sector.
One of the most important challenges is to find ways to make the work of agents more regulated.
Their performances would then be subject to greater oversight and allow clients to carry out purchases with ‘greater peace of mind’.
Watillon Nicolas, president of MLS Europe and Proxigest Immobilier, based in Brussels, was one of the event’s attendees.
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Nicolas spoke of the way agents work in Belgium, explaining the requirement of training courses before they are officially allowed to operate.
He told the Olive Press: “Regulation is so important for the buyer and the seller, and events like this are really useful to try and push these ideas forward.”
GIPE has 3,700 agents based in Spain who have benefitted from their training and support programmes.
The 40-year association has a code of conduct that aims to bring professionals together who share ‘ethics, rigour and excellence.’
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