Historic Merger Creates Belize Real Estate Association

For years, Belize’s real estate professionals operated under two separate organizations. Now, they are joining forces. The Association of Real Estate Brokers of Belize and the Belize National Association of Real Estate have merged to form the Belize Real Estate Association, or BREA. Industry leaders say the new national body will combine their expertise and resources, strengthen professional standards and give real estate professionals one voice on issues affecting the sector.

 

Guy Neal, President, Belize National Association of Real Estate

“Both associations have been working together for many years towards some of the same objectives. And we’ve got to the point where it made more sense to combine our strengths. A unified association reduces duplication, gives the industry a clearer voice, and makes it easier to establish consistent standards across the industry. It’s been quite the experience working with these folks because we all bring a certain level of understanding and experience. And it’s been really progressive ever since we’ve joined forces.”

 

Britney Gordon

“What expertise do you think both companies bring to the table?”

 

Guy Neal

“Well, both associations have a number of members all across the country. And those are made up of agents, agent brokers, larger firms. And each of these persons, through their own professional experience, have gathered knowledge and been able to use that.”

 

Michael Singh, President, Association of Real Estate Brokers of Belize

“So I think both associations were very adamant of ensuring that they bring the best practitioners to the market, that they’re trained, that their ethics are in line, So we’ve really been running in parallel. But the one thing that we weren’t doing is speaking with the same voice. And that created a separation in the eyes of the government, not a competition. It was just a separation. So we felt the best thing to do was for us to join forces and to speak from one voice. Let’s use economies of scale to use a business term. So that we’re not duplicating efforts and have one single point of contact where we all agree on the rules, we all agree on the rules of engagement, and we can then build the things that the industry needs for it to be formalized.”

 

The new association will hold its first AGM in November to elect leaders and discuss regulations with government officials.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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