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Josep Maria Llorca: "We face the challenge of uniting as a sector and improving our training to offer better services and change the way people perceive us."

09/30/2022

Near the Muelle de la Madera, and in the heart of the Gothic Quarter, lies Albium – Properties in Barcelona.

When you walk in, you're enveloped in a tranquil atmosphere, filled with harmony and calm. Josep Maria Llorca is the soul of this family business from Montseny. He speaks from the experience of someone who has lived it since childhood. He has an innovative, restless spirit, and is motivated to continue learning every day to provide the best service. These are the values his agency conveys: proximity, empathy, innovation, learning, solidarity, responsibility, and trust.

How did you get started in the real estate world?

We started in the construction industry with my grandfather in the 1960s, and it was my father who initiated the transition from a construction company to a real estate firm. I joined the company in 2010 and helped boost the real estate agency branch, specializing in brokerage, sales, and rentals, primarily in Barcelona, although we originally came from Montseny.

Was it your vocation or was it a generational change?

No, no, not at all. In fact, I finished my degree in 1998, and I didn't join the family business until 2010. I spent many years at a multinational company, Vileda, traveling the world, always in logistics and production. I worked in the US and Germany, but there came a time when I had a daughter and my second was on the way, and I started to reflect. I thought it was strange that I'd never been part of a business I'd been involved with since I was a kid, when I really loved it. And so I took the plunge.

And how did you prepare for this new challenge?

I had studied for five years at ESADE and then worked at the multinational. I also trained in real estate at the UB. When I decided to enter the real estate sector, I took advantage of the training offered by the API College to specialize and update my knowledge, as it's a sector in which things change a lot, especially in tax and legal matters, etc.

What business model did you adopt and what is its strategy?

Basically, since we had a real estate component, we initially decided to expand into all temporary, non-tourist, and long-term rentals. From there, we moved into buying and selling brokerage. These were the two pillars that complemented the family business. And recently, we're adding services such as personal shopping and rental management.

Good service and personal treatment are very important to you, right?

Yes, we wanted to offer you excellent service. Personalized and highly professional treatment is what makes clients recommend you to family and friends. They tell you that, with our advice, their purchase or rental transaction went perfectly and they were very happy.

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How do you respond to current customer demand?

Due to our location in Barcelona's Old Town, we receive a lot of demand from foreign clients, although due to the pandemic, we had to expand our presence in the rest of the city. These clients come to us for a specific property or come to the agency. They are people who have already been to Barcelona several times, have fallen in love with the city, and are returning with the idea of buying an apartment for their own use or as an investment.

What are your company's values?

When we talk about values, I'm always afraid of falling into clichés! But hey, one of our values, and one that every team member holds dear, is client empathy. To be able to advise someone on a real estate transaction, the first thing you need to understand is the stage of their life and what they really need. This requires a lot of empathy on our part, knowing how to listen, asking a lot of questions, and sometimes, painfully, saying we can't help them if we truly can't adapt to their needs and capabilities.

What advice would you give to someone looking to buy or sell a home?

In the case of the owner, I would tell them to seek advice, to go to different APIs, and to choose the one they trust the most. Whenever an owner comes to me for an appraisal of their property, I tell them the same thing: we must have a relationship of trust because we will be together in a process that can last months, important decisions will have to be made, and if we don't have mutual trust, it won't work.

And in the case of buyers, who have traditionally been largely independent, I think they currently have very interesting services, such as personal shoppers. Some people will think they don't need a professional with these characteristics, but it's the best way to ensure the market is properly explored. A real estate personal shopper will get you a better price than you could negotiate and will help you shorten the buying process.

What do you think APIs can contribute to society and what will their role be in 10 years?

Here, in this sense, we're always very much reflected in American society, where real estate agents enjoy a prestige that we don't have here. For me, this involves two determining factors. First, and it's largely the responsibility of the agents themselves, who have performed poorly for years; and second, the lack of formal training and a lack of access control to the profession, which have led to a lot of intrusion by poorly prepared individuals, opportunists who enter or leave the sector depending on the economic situation. In the US, when rankings are made of the professions of the future that children want to pursue, real estate agents always appear in the top positions. So, we must get our act together, and in fact, we are already doing so, to improve as professionals and raise the prestige of our profession. This is the great challenge for the future.