«The key to success lies in uniting.» Results of ICREDM 2023 International Conference on Real Estate Development and Management

The 3rd International Conference on Real Estate Development and Management, ICREDM 2023, was held on February 1-4, 2023, in Ankara, the capital of Turkey. The event was held under the slogan «New reality, new normal in real estate.» We summarize the key points and present feedback from conference attendees.

ICREDM 2023 brought together about 2000 foreign and Turkish specialists. Experts, ministers, professors, researchers, and even students — everyone involved in real estate and interested in the development of this industry — gathered in one place.

The main topics that were covered at the conference

The main subjects of the conference were:

1. Real Estate and Asset Valuation.
2. Real Estate, Assets, and Construction Economics.
3. Real Estate Development and Real Estate Management.
4. Real Estate Investments and Finance.
5. Land Use, Management, and Policy; and Sustainability.
6. Facility, Real Estate, and Asset Management.
7. Climate Change, Disaster Risks, Spatial Planning, and Real Estate Markets.
8. Digitalization and Information Systems in the Real Estate Sector.
9. Real estate Education and Training; Research, Professional organizations and Internationalization. 
10. Presentations of Graduate Students.

The conference covered a great many topics, including construction and real estate, real estate ownership and use, land tenure systems, property rights restrictions and mitigation, etc.

Who were the conference speakers?

ICREDM 2023 featured more than 80 speakers — world-renowned experts and scientists as well as Turkish scientists and practitioners. Among them were representatives of Turkish ministries, the International Valuation Standards Council (IVSC), the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), the Eurasia Council of Appraisers' Associations, the International Facility Management Association (IFMA), and others. 

Ali Memar, Ambassador of the National Association of Realtors (NAR) in Turkey, Dubai, and Lebanon, was one of the conference speakers. Ali Memar gave an exclusive interview for the REALTING platform following his speech. He went into more detail about NAR, its relationships with other nations and organizations, and the collaboration between real estate agents and developers.

«Education is the most important part of working in real estate»

— The National Association of Realtors (NAR), the world’s largest association of real estate agents, currently has more than 1.6 million registered agents. We have bilateral partnership agreements with 76 countries, and there are 104 associations in those countries that we work with. And we go forward and plan to involve more and more countries.

Regarding the cooperation between real estate agents and developers within the association, developers pay commissions depending on how much they want to sell properties. I had a case in Dubai where a developer was offering a 12% commission because he needed to sell a property as soon as possible. We usually get 6% from developers.

In most states in America, however, the commission is negotiable. You and the seller can agree on a commission rate, but it typically ranges from 4% to 6%.

We provide global assistance to our bilateral partners. We need a partnership agreement in order to be able to help them. Then we do training in all those countries. In November, we did a course in Turkey; in May, we have two courses planned; and we may have another one in April. So in every country we go to, we bring education, because that is the most important part of working in real estate.

«It is the conference’s greatest accomplishment to bring together people of theory and practice»

Representatives of the international real estate platform REALTING.COM, together with Dr. Nikolai Trifonov, an Academician of the International Academy of Engineering, a Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Engineering, an Honorary Appraiser of the Republic of Kazakhstan, FRICS, an Honorary Member of the Association of Kyrgyzian Appraisers, Associação Portugueses de Avaliadores de Activos Fixos (Portugal), Osteuropäischer Sachverständigen Verein (Germany), also took part and spoke at the conference. 

Alena Martynenko, CEO of LLC «REALTING», the international real estate platform REALTING.COM, shares her thoughts on the event:

— We have attended many real estate conferences over the years, but ICREDM impressed us tremendously, especially in terms of organization and hospitality. Each of us (and there were a lot of participants) felt cared for at every stage of the conference. It says a lot that even at the very end of the conference, the room was still packed with attendees who stayed to the very last second. Simply put, we were grateful for the kindness and hospitality shown to us by the Turkish organizers. 

The ICREDM conference was opened and co-organized by Harun Tanrivermis, Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Applied Sciences at Ankara University. To organize an event of this magnitude required an enormous amount of work, which deserves praise. Choosing where to go could be challenging at times because the three days were so intense and filled with so many lectures and fascinating speakers. 

As an international real estate platform, we were incredibly pleased to meet Susan Greenfield, FIABCI World President; Dr. Omokolade Akinsomi, President of the African Real Estate Society and the International Real Estate Society; and Ali Memar, Ambassador of the National Association of Realtors (NAR) in Turkey, Dubai, and Lebanon.

The conference’s most significant accomplishment, in my opinion, was the integration of theory and practice: those who presented their research had the opportunity to speak with actual real estate professionals (including realtors) and apply their findings to the business side of the real estate market. 

For example, much attention at the conference was devoted to the questions of urbanization, the use of the environment during construction, and how to make the infrastructure of future cities as environmentally friendly and comfortable as possible. And all that was analyzed using the cases of real cities and their specific problems. And given that there were representatives from both science and business at the conference, I believe that the suggested solutions will be put into practice in the real world, and soon we will see the future cities taking shape.

I believe that during the conference, a continuous chain of interactions was created: scientists who make discoveries + businesspeople who put the research to use in the marketplace = results that are useful. So once again, I would like to express my enormous respect to the organizers for their ability to bring together in one place so many different professionals from the same business community. Such events definitely contribute to the development of the real estate market.

We were also very impressed by the closing presentation by Cemalettin Akgul, Chairman of Maestro Global Estate and co-founder of Genius Platform. He presented cutting-edge metaverse developments. This presentation was a great way to wrap things up, especially since it was infused with a crucial concept: the real and virtual property sectors are currently developing concurrently, and the key to the future is combining the two trends. 

The idea of unification was the recurring theme throughout the entire conference: unification of science with business practice, unification of the real world with the virtual, because unification is the foundation and assurance of development.

Dr. Nikolai Trifonov, General Director of the Eurasia Council of Appraisers’ Associations and Chairman of the Belarusian Society of Valuers, also shared his impressions about the conference:

— The international conference organized by the Faculty of Applied Sciences at Ankara University was one of the biggest real estate conferences held in the years following COVID-19. Every continent, except for Antarctica and South America, was represented by outstanding experts in the field. There, however, I received a greeting from Karl-Werner Schulte, former president of the International Real Estate Society, now traveling through Antarctica.

A large part of the program of the event was devoted to the valuation of real estate as well as the valuation of businesses, intangible and tangible assets. During the conference, I sat in the speaker’s chair three times. The first was when presenting the platform REALTING.COM, which was perceived by the audience as a new tool for the worldwide consolidation of developers, real estate brokers, and consumers. In another session, I spoke about modern valuation methods using the income approach. My third presentation focused on the Eurasia Council of Appraisers’ Associations, a regional organization of national valuer associations. After this report, the appraisers’ organizations of the two countries asked for negotiations, as a result of which they expressed a desire to join the Council.