Running Head; Business Informational Interview Business Informational Interview Institutional affiliation Student's name Business Informational Interview Villa Care Limited Company is a multinational Real Estate company. This is the interview I had with the CEO and Founder, Mr. Condred Bluff ME; what kind of company and what business to do you engage in? CEO; Villa Care is a Multinational Real estate company head quartered in Toronto, Canada. We have subsidiaries across North America and some Europe countries. We offer Quality Real estate property and acquisition services because we know buying or selling property can be a complicated and overwhelming process. We ensure that we thoroughly educate our clients prior selling or buying property on their behalf. ME. Why did you decide to venture into real estate business? CEO; Personally, I am a banker by profession. I had been working with Barclays Bank in London for over 20 years. When I came to Toronto, Canada, I found it very difficult to find a good real estate company that I could I deal with satisfactorily. Although at long last I bought the house I wanted, I realized there was a market gap in this industry. What if I started my own real estate company whereby I would ensure that there is customer satisfaction in terms of diversity of available products, countrywide locations, affordability, among other factors? It was from this urge that Villa care real estate was born ME; what form of business is Villa Care real Estate CEO; Initially, I started Villa care as a Sole proprietor. Later on when demand for land and houses raised, we partnered with a friend and we operated for 5 years are partners. In the year 2010, we registered the business as a private Company. We are therefore operating as a private company. Business Informational Interview ME; what are the main advantages of operating as a private company as opposed to other form of business operations? CEO; There are several merits of operating a private limited company, but I will give a few; First, the owners have limited liability. What this implies is if the company experience financial distress because of normal business activity, the personal assets of shareholders will not be at risk of being seized by creditors. The second advantage is that, Continuity of existence is guaranteed because business not affected by the status of the owner. Third, it is easier to register since Minimum number of shareholders needed to start the business are only two. In addition, and unlike sole proprietorship and partnership, we are allowed to have a maximum of 50 shareholders and this put us in a better position to raise more capital. Last but not the least, Scope of expansion is higher because easy to raise capital from financial institutions and the advantage of limited liability. ME Thank you, what do you consider a setbacks in operating a private company as opposed to other forms of business operations. CEO; There are actually very few disadvantages of operating this form of business. As I g=had earlier mentioned as an advantage of raising more capital because we have a limit of 50 shareholders, what if we need more capital? You will find that we are strained to raise money elsewhere because we cannot add any other shareholder. Secondly, the shares in a private limited company cannot be sold or transferred to anyone else without the agreement of other shareholders. Business Informational Interview ME; what is your view on ethical behavior and responsibility as far as the industry in which you operate is concerned? CEO; Maugham said that people can only do what is right when the correct virtues have become habits. And these habits must be so strong that acting upon them becomes instinctive. In real estate, the opposite has occurred. Thousands of agents, focused on self-interest, have developed systems and habits which are so bad they can't help hurting sellers and buyers. They do the wrong thing almost instinctively. There is often a big difference between what is legal and what is ethical. Many agents use 'legal' as their standard. It is legal to receive kickbacks and so they do it. It may be legal to have 'dummy bidders' and so they do it. It is legal to quote one price to sellers and another price to buyers and then blame the market. It is legal to take money from home sellers in the full knowledge that this money is not to promote the property but to promote the agents. There are other many unethical practices in this industry that are only creating mistrust between clients and real estate managers. What makes our company stand out is that we strive as much as we can to create trust between us and our clients by ensuring that we provide quality and genuine homes and lands that has no any issues. ME; What is your view on the environmental state of real estate as far as factors relating to Economy, legal, technological and completion are concerned? CEO; actually that is a wide topic that can take us the whole day. But I will briefly mention a few development or issues in the environment in which our business operates. Let me start with the Business Informational Interview economy of real estate; for close to two years the real estate sector has been blasting through the most optimistic forecasts for its recovery. At the end of May new housing starts were up a huge 28.1% year-to-date. Existing home sales had increased 15.2% over the previous 12 months. Home prices have shot up 12.2% nationally over the last 12 months, the biggest year-over-year jump since March, 2006 (near the peak of the housing bubble). Prices were up more than 20% in some of the trouble spots of the last housing bubble like Florida, California, and Las Vegas. It's been hot. The National Association of Realtors reported two weeks ago that 47% of all homes sold in June were on the market for less than a month. As in the big bubble of 5005-2006, multiple bids and selling prices higher than asking prices have been fairly common. On technology in real estate, I will mention the obvious. Just like any other industry, technology has tremendously changed how thing are done. 50 years ago, newspapers were the main advertising material of buying and selling homes. Today however, 90% of real estate advertisements are done through internet. The Internet has had a significant impact on the real estate industry, leading to a diversification of business models to serve consumers on legal matters in real state, every real estate transaction presents potential legal pitfalls. Buyers and sellers may bring suits against their brokers or agents, based on both statutory and common law, for a variety of reasons, including misrepresentation or nondisclosure of property conditions, breach of fiduciary duty, and unlawful discrimination, to name a few. Lastly, as far as Competition is concerned in real estate industry, I can say that Competition provides American consumers lower prices, better quality services, and greater choice. In the residential real estate industry, competition is vitally important because buying or selling a home is one of the most important financial transactions a consumer will ever undertake. Given the Business Informational Interview size of the real estate industry, any restraints on competition in real estate brokerage will have significant adverse consequences for consumers. ME; Thank you very much for the insight. Now, what strategies do you use to gain and maintain new business opportunities? CEO; as a company, we have guidelines values that we operate our business in. our values are; Honesty, Integrity, Quality service and professionalism. Let me tell you that the moment you become true to yourself, you will never lose track. We stick and adhere to these values to the later, and as you can see and hear the performance as well as the growth of our company, it is tremendous. The success can be traced to our operating values. ME; what if I had the power to take you back from the time you started, what would do you differently? CEO; that's a good question. Actually along the journey, I had had failures and success of equivalent measures. Had known the power of ethics in this industry and the rule of law, I would not have lost some thousands of dollars through lawsuits and environmental violations signs. But through them, I have become a well round leader, not just a manager. I would do a lot more slightly different if not the same. Business Informational Interview References Gottdiener, M., & Hutchison, R. (2010). The new urban sociology. Westview Press. Carn, N., Black, R., & Rabianski, J. (1999). Operational and organizational issues facing corporate real estate executives and managers. Journal of Real Estate Research, 17(3), 281-299. Hunt, C. B., & Auster, E. R. (1990). Proactive environmental management: avoiding the toxic trap. Sloan management review, 31(2), 7-18