By Shaimaa Ibrahim & Translated by Kholoud Mohamed

Exporting Egypt’s real estate market to foreign countries, not just the GCC and Egyptian expats, became a key sales and targeting strategy back in 2019 and onwards. Invest-Gate takes the opportunity to discuss the matter with Real Estate Domain (RED) led by Egypt’s first consortium and speaks to Egypt’s icons in the brokerage market, including Khalid Bahig, Chairman and CEO of RED, Mohamed Banany, Managing Director of RED, and Karim Ghoneim, CEO of BYC for real estate marketing.

RED collaboration includes the largest real estate companies and is considered a positive step within the strategic plan presented by the state to develop the entire real estate sector. RED alliance includes Upstate, Kayan, The Mediator, Nawah, Misr el Akareya, and Landbank. Besides, the new alliance organized the activities of the “RED EXPO” exhibition on February 26, featuring the participation of more than 35 real estate developers, more than 200 projects, diversified between commercial, administrative, residential, and hotel, across different regions.

The Egyptian government has implemented facilitation measures in order to increase real estate exports, which goes in line with the economic need to increase exports in order to balance the currency and trade deficiencies. On the other hand, developers have adopted the measures to increase their targeted markets, especially considering the affordability of Egyptian real estate developments after currency conversion and as an attractive investment opportunity with high appreciation rates.

Such a strategy has two additional effects on the Egyptian real estate market. First, it forces developers to raise development standards to meet requirements of the foreign client, which will effectively improve quality of developments. Second, it will also increase market competitiveness, as well as, change the type of developments based on the larger international demand. Thus, Invest-Gate sheds the light on transformations of real estate marketers towards exporting real estate of Egypt.

Real Estate Marketing

Real estate marketing is one of the important pillars in the Egyptian real estate sector due to its contributions to the success of companies’ businesses. This kind of marketing aims to satisfying the customer and achieving the highest sales rates for the developer. With the fast growth the market is currently witnessing, this requires more organized marketing plan for the real estate marketing companies to adopt over the coming period, as most real estate development companies rely on marketers to promote their projects, especially in light of the expected demand increase in 2022. Therefore, the real estate agent bears a large part of the responsibility in marketing private sector projects, as well as promoting national projects implemented by the state.

Khalid Bahig, Chairman and CEO of RED, states that cooperation with distinguished real estate marketing companies is formed according to specific criteria so that these companies can work under the supervision of RED and follow its future strategies. Additionally, three new agreements are to be signed with other companies soon.

RED EXPO is the real launch of the alliance, but the event’s main objective is to present exclusive and special offers to the client from real estate development companies with a strong reputation and credibility in the market, Bahig tells Invest-Gate in an exclusive interview, noting that the event will also provide necessary advice to the customer with the real estate product suitable for his purchasing power.

“We managed reaching a large number of clients; and this could be proved by the increasing demand for the exhibition, which confirms large entities with good minds can present innovative ideas, compared to the work of each company alone,” Bahig tells Invest-Gate.

The CEO further notes that Egypt’s real estate market is expected to continue to thrive during 2022 through achieving higher growth rates than the past two years, especially as it enjoys a large supply volume commensurate with the purchasing power of customers, in addition to the availability of investment opportunities that attract foreign investment, which contributes to supporting export real estate.

Bahig confirms that RED Collaboration aims to achieve sales for real estate developers worth EGP 5 bn during 2022, so that the company will continue its expansions across the local market.

In this regard, Mohamed Banany, Managing Director of RED, explains that the alliance came to change the real estate map in Egypt, by joining the best real estate experiences, stressing that efficiency and credibility are the main principles and objectives of joining the alliance.

He further notes that all the companies joining this alliance will work with one strategy that has been agreed upon, and that each company will have its own independent personality, clients, and sales, pointing out that the aim of the alliance is to coordinate between companies in terms of information and databases.

Banany says that the RED alliance is a positive step in order to organize the real estate market, as the alliance works to raise the efficiency of real estate agents, by exchanging different experiences between the major marketing companies, noting that “the main purpose of the alliance is to provide a distinguished and professional service to the customer without erroneous practices, and to assist the developer in achieving targeted sales,” Banany tells Invest-Gate.

“Cooperation between companies is a healthy phenomenon. We are now in an era of alliances, and we will witness more alliances in the real estate sector and even across other economic sectors during the upcoming period, because we must have a different and innovative idea to boost the real estate sector as a whole, especially within our field,” Banany adds.

He stresses that there is a remarkable real estate activity in the market based on real demand, pointing out that the market is expected to witness more growth in 2022, especially with new developers joining in. “Thus, we must take advantage of the current unprecedented real estate boom, because Egypt is one of the countries in the world that achieves development rates. This comes within Egypt’s Vision 2030 to supporting the export of real estate to foreign markets,” he believes.

E-marketing

In light of the technical renaissance and the great digital transformation that market witnesses, many companies are turning to e-marketing. In this regard, Karim Ghoneim, CEO of BYC for real estate marketing, confirms, “RED alliance is well aware of the importance of relying on the latest technology and continuous training in order to bring about a fundamental change in the brokerage and consulting market. This alliance seeks to be an added value in the real estate market, through providing everything  real estate agents need to promote real estate products inside and outside Egypt.”

Additionally, the new alliance will launch the “Real Estate Marketing Academy RED” initiative that is considered an operating license to practice real estate marketing activity. RED also reveals that the alliance elements are selected according to specific criteria and principles, namely: maximizing the status of real estate marketing companies, regulating the commercial relationship between the agents and the developer at the administrative, technical and financial levels, qualifying and training current and future real estate agents on the basic principles and values of customer service, As well as starting a project to organize work in the real estate market, like other countries.