Luxury Real Estate

By Jim Walberg of Caribbean Island Realty

Who's Who in Luxury Real Estate International Conference - Paris, France. Day 3 - final two sessions

The last day of the Luxury Real Estate International - Paris Conference was focused on current and future technology critical to the international real estate community, and what are some concepts for exit strategies for selling a real estate company.

Victor Lund, one of the partners of the WAV Group, was the presenter on technology tools and trends. The research he did for this presentation was impressive. I would recommend you visit their website and learn more about the services they provide real estate companies around the world. I had several discussions with Victor and his fellow partners about how the success of Caribbean Islands Realty can even be expanded.

John Brian Losh was the facilitator for the last two sessions of the conference. The first session was about how one valuates a Brokerage, and if one is ready to retire or move on to a new adventure how can it be sold. There was a very lively discussion on this topic. Several of the comments from the participants were focused on they could not imagine retiring. There is something unique about owning a real estate company that allows one to serve clients as long as one is able and is still finding it a satisfying and profitable experience.

Mr. Losh wrapped up the conference with a time of reflecting on the profitable ideas that we will be taking back to our real estate businesses. There was a LONG list of ideas and tools that will be serving all of us in 2009. Some of my final thoughts from the Paris conference were:

• Some of my personal take aways from the Paris conference are focused on the extraordinary quality of the LRE members. Meeting new LRE friends and expanding friendships with those I already new was worth the price of admission.
• Each of us have unique businesses, and very specific local real estate markets in the as part of the Luxury Real Estate international membership. One can gather all the latest greatest “stuff” for our businesses, however the bottom line is it still is all about personal relationships. People do business with people they trust and actually enjoy working with.
• The ultimate power of the Luxury Real Estate network is still generally untapped. The more relationships we have within Who’s Who In Luxury Real Estate the more we are able to leverage our global real estate services and sell more properties.

From Australia to Poland, my real estate businesses have been expanded because of my participation in this important international conference in Paris. AND…did we have some amazing fun in Paris exploring restaurants, and even some fun cave vin bars. Actually, the fellowship time was where the long lasting effects of the Paris conference will benefit all of the delegates. My next adventure was to Geneva after Paris. Stay tuned…more to come.