Architects, living with your back to real estate is a bad idea
There is a good business opportunity in establishing proactive and recurring partnerships with real estate companies (beyond developers) - the data shows it!
1.- According to the National Statistics Institute (INE)in 2018 there were 44,972 companies in Catalonia operating under CNAE 68: Real estate activities.
According to the COAC website's member search engine, "(...) provides you with the contact details of the nearly 10,000 architects who are members of the COAC. The directory includes both self-employed architects and architectural firms". We also know that these are grouped together in the majority of the 4,300 firms offering architectural services in Catalonia (this includes services offered for senior and technical architects).
A quick calculation leads to the conclusion that for every 4 architects there are 19 firms involved in real estate activities or that there are 19 firms involved in real estate activities. for every architecture firm there are 10 real estate firms. This is a first piece of information.
According to the portal Idealista, of the more than 74,000 properties on offer in the province of Barcelona, 6,250 dwellings are to be refurbished8.3% and we know that between 1 January 2015 and today, around 350,000 dwellings.
Once again, a calculation - and allow me to take a little license here, despite its questionable methodological rigour - yields the figure of almost 30,000 homes transacted in five years in Catalonia that have required some degree of renovation work and which, believe me when I tell you, are considerably more given the enormous number of homes that sellers consider to be in "good condition" (and which are filtered through real estate portals) and which their new owners completely transform after purchase. Therefore, it would not be unreasonable to conclude that in the last five years, for every architectural firm, almost 10 flats have been partially or completely refurbished, two per year. Second piece of information.
3.- We could go on talking about other needs associated with marketing which real estate agencies encounter and which are met by architectural services: Certificates of habitability, energy efficiency certifications, technical inspection of buildings, legalisations, activity licences, changes of use, fittings and preliminary studies, feasibility studies, urban analysis of areas of opportunity for development, renderings... Third piece of information.
By means of this schematic and approximate comparison of data, I want to show that there is a good opportunity for architects to work and do business in the establishment of proactive and recurrent alliances with companies dedicated to the real estate activity (beyond the developers). The data show that there is a sufficient volume of real estate transactions and a well-distributed network of agencies to handle them, which for architects could end up being a fantastic sales network.
For architects, there is a good opportunity for work and business in establishing proactive and recurring partnerships with real estate companies.
If you think that a conversation with Monapart can help you to face your first contacts with the agencies in your area, come and see us. You know architect, we will be happy to tell you that there is life beyond architecture and without renouncing it.
