ABOUT ALAIN PINEL REALTORS Alain Pinel Realtors has 24 Northern California offices and is one of the largest real estate firms nationally with 2005 sales volume of $7.75 billion and an average sales price per transaction side of $1.14 million. The company is a founding member of Luxury Portfolio, an operating unit of The Leading Real Estate Companies of the World and is in a joint venture partnership in the mortgage lending institution, Private Mortgage Advisers (an affiliate of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.). To learn more about the company please see apr.com.
October 10, 2006 – Los Gatos, Calif. -- ORPI, the largest real estate network in France with more than 1,350 brokerages offices throughout the country, visited the Alain Pinel Realtors office in Los Gatos today as part of a business best practices tour in the Bay Area. ORPI’s president, vice president of marketing, CIO and a contingency of more than a dozen met with APR President Larry Knapp and other representatives from the company who provided a brief overview of Alain Pinel Realtors and how the company conducts business. Afterward, the group toured an open house listed for sale by Alain Pinel Realtors. ORPI chose to visit Alain Pinel Realtors because of the company’s international reputation for excellence. Founded in 1965, the oldest real estate network in France was formed by a group of 12 independent real estate service agencies who realized that their respective listings of buyers and sellers were never shared. They created ORPI, comprised of regional Economic Interest Groups (EIG), with a common database for its owning members. They also founded SOCORPI, a national and central structure for their cooperative enterprise. To learn more, please see www.orpi.com and be sure to click the English version (unless you speak French). The APR/ORPI meeting was arranged by LEADVISIONS, the Miami (FLA)-based organization that specializes in the conception and organization of customized, high-level educational business seminars to the United States for the benefit of European industry leaders. ORPI’s visit to Alain Pinel Realtors’ Los Gatos office was from 10 AM to Noon. Located at 750 University Avenue, the Los Gatos APR office is repeatedly one of the top-ranked real estate offices in the United States. For four consecutive years, that single office has generated more than $1 billion in sales volume each year. Different ways of doing business The French real estate market is comprised mostly of owner/sellers, whereas the majority of U.S. residential real estate sale/purchase agreements are professionally managed by a real estate broker, agent or an associate of a broker. ORPI is listing more than 65,000 properties and enjoys a market share of more than 18 percent in France, yet the country does not have a comprehensive, nationwide Multiple Listing Service (MLS), as we do in every major U.S. metro market. One of the purposes of ORPI’s visit is to learn more about American-style MLS systems. Ironically, ORPI’s visit occurred as regional MLS’ in Northern California are evolving and considering whether to merge their enterprises to gain more efficiency in operations and serve customers better. ABOUT LEADVISIONS LEADVISIONS, managed by Patricia Boutet and Liz Gazay, specializes in the conception and organization of customized high-level educational business seminars to the United States for the benefit of European industry leaders, and to Europe for U.S. executives. The Miami-based company –- founded more than 10 years ago by Patricia Boutet under PB INTERNATIONAL brand – has brought hundreds of European leaders and decisions makers of the top European finance, retailing, automobile, real estate and other services industries. These delegations are traveling all across America to meet and exchange ideas with American entrepreneurs. Prestigious American corporations, Fortune 500 companies, creative start-ups, powerful associations and American entrepreneurs regularly participate to these educational seminars, opening their doors, sharing their business vision, their philosophy and creating new bridges of relationships and knowledge between corporate America and Europe. In the U.S., LEADVISIONS delegates have visited Cisco Systems, Microsoft Corp., EBay, Nike, The New York Times, Target, Yahoo and Sun Microsystems, among other leading American business brands.