Thank you for upholding The Real Estate Spirit

Thank you all for your Seasonal Greetings.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank those of you who upheld the Real Estate Spirit in the past, by participating in the training programs. The Real Estate Industry needs professionals such as you.

In the words of Charles Dickens: ‘I have endeavoured… to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which’ is not intended to put trainees ‘out of humour with themselves, with each other’ with the profession or with me’.(See quote below: [Preface]“A CHRISTMAS CAROL”)

The Ghost of Real Estate Past in Portugal has seen many changes since the 1974 Revolution; changes that have made us more participative and more responsible Real Estate Professionals.

Indeed, it can be said that over the last 20 years, Real Estate in Portugal has matured in more ways than one, most importantly in its awareness of attitude and how to deal with people. Like the Cratchits (The Family, characters in “A Christmas Carol”) they have become the heart and soul of Real Estate. They are our consumers, be they clients or ‘interessados’.

Many of us, like Ebenezer Scrooge (main character in “A Christmas Carol”), believed ourselves to be great entrepreneurs. Indeed we did make many a great deal. However we did so with no knowledge of what the Real Estate Practice really entails from beginning to end; More often than not we left out the Spirit of Real Estate from our mediation and were merely surfing on experience.

Nowadays, the Ghost of Real Estate Present calls upon us to turn our attention to the ‘Tiny Tim Cratchits’(in “Christmas Carol”) as a better means to ‘gain a fine reputation’ in the real estate business.

Like Dickens, the Decree Law 211/2004 warns us about the ‘two pitiful children who personify Ignorance and Want’ (quote: “A Christmas Carol”).

Much more is needed to make the Real Estate Industry better in a Europe which wants to become more successful and integrated:

• With the opening of more countries into the Schengen space and the gradual, but certain, implementation of the Boulogne Process; Portugal and the Algarve, in particular, have still a lot to offer.

The Ghost of Real Estate Yet to Come in Portugal shows us we can be better professionals by working together and thriving to become a well-known and highly-respected body; which is capable of defending not just the ‘empresa de mediação imobiliária’ but also the ‘angariador’. In turn this will help to shape a better market for all.

This dictates our course of action for 2008:

Real Estate Practice, Unipessoal, Lda. will continue to uphold training as a major tool for professionalism in the industry; whilst preserving Portuguese as the main language used, it defends a multicultural approach and the need for a wider perspective to the knowledge that real estate entails.

Throughout 2008, different Training Courses will be held, as has been our tradition, and so we start the New Year with:

• 11^th January – Continuous training course
• 9^th January – REP event & seminar (May be postponed)
• 15^th January – Bilingual exam preparation course

In addition a new consultation scheme will start, through an affiliate company or business person program in which in-house activities will be made available.

Thanking you once more. May the Christmas Spirit be with us all throughout 2008!

… and ‘May the Real Estate Spirit haunt your houses, pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.’ (quote: “A Christmas Carol”).

Yours faithfully,

Daniel Foster da Silva

Managing Partner

Real Estate Practice, Unip. Lda

A CHRISTMAS CAROL – Please refer to link:

http://www.real-estate-practice.eu/Christmas_Carol.html