Ricardo Betancourt is returning to the CEO of Colliers Brazil CEO, one of the global leaders in real estate services and investment management, after almost two years away from office. In an interview with Infomoneyhe says That the strategy of your new management is “being aggressive in relationship” to gain market and cross this high interest rate.
“My mission is to be very aggressive in relationship, to be very aggressive going after customers, to be very aggressive in everyday life in search of new accounts so that we can enjoy the situation ahead,” he says.
For him, Selic in 15% is one of the main challenges of the real estate market of business and logistics warehouses, because it makes access to credit to investment in the sector. With this, there are fewer releases, lower area offer, and pressure on prices.
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With over two decades of experience in the sector, Betancourt takes office after Paula Casarini, who worked for 19 years at Colliers, to go to a new opportunity in another market.
In this high interest scenario, Betancourt says the focus of his management will be to expand the offer. In the offices, in addition to high standard places, it will seek new contracts in the “market B”, which are at less popular addresses. In the warehouses, the search will be for newly approved projects or at the beginning of construction to be able to adapt and serve customers.
To the InfomoneyBetancourt detailed his plans for the company and the current real estate situation. Check out the interview below.
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Infomoney: You are assuming the position of CEO of Colliers in a high interest scenario by pressing the demand for offices and logistics warehouses. What is your expectation and plans for this management?
Ricardo Betancourt: I get excited, although this is a challenging scenario. I will not say that my life will be easy, because we are in a moment of high interest rates, which makes the entire real estate market difficult. The challenge is to go through this period and get in a good position when interest rates fall.
Colliers has always been among the best companies, and we will not give up the leadership in the logistics market. In the office market, there is a leading company and there is a vacuum in second place. We go after this second place.
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My mission is to be very aggressive in relationships, to be very aggressive going after customers, to be very aggressive in everyday life in search of new accounts so that we can better enjoy the situation up front.
This is my characteristic. I am a CEO who, instead of being more inward, I will be back more out. I am a very relationship person, visiting customers, spending much of my time outside the office – and I’m not here at all saying what is right or wrong. It’s my way of being. With this, we can bring more business, leverage more accounts. That’s how I’m going to work.
IM: And at this moment, are high interest rates the main challenge?
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RB: I would say yes. Colliers, when it started, depended practically only on the areas of real estate marketing and intermediation. In these 28 years of company, we have diversifying our services, and today we operate not only in real estate intermediation, but also in real estate management, building management, works and services management, facilities.
This diversification was very important because, at times like this, we have a series of recurring revenue services. And you don’t get to this stage overnight. If we were only with intermediation services today, our lives would be much more difficult.
IM: The logistics market has low vacancy, but the areas of shed construction continue to expand, even with high interest rates. In your assessment, if interest were lower, would there be a demand for a higher offer?
RB: Firstly, I think the logistics market is a more democratic market. And what do I mean by that? Different from the office market, the logistics market has an expansion throughout Brazil. The office market, making this comparison, is much more concentrated on the Rio-São Paulo axis. The logistics, no. You have Pernambuco, Ceará, Bahia, Amazonas, have a presence all over Brazil because consumption is all over the country. Where it has good demographic density, it has logistics coming back.
What makes you have a decrease in new warehouses is precisely the slightest offer [de áreas]. This is the impact of interest on the market. It is harder for companies to capture money to offer new products. This generates a decrease in vacancy. Today we have a vacancy in Brazil of 7.2%, in some states is 2%, 3%, 4%.
This has another impact, which is the increase in price. When the vacancy rate is one digit only, this generates pressure in the price. So low vacancy is also a reflection of the decrease in supply.
This leads, in some cases, to the BTS situation, Build to Suit, tailor -made for those who can afford to wait. So we often need to be in touch with players, consultants, developers to try to find solutions on newly approved projects or starting to serve our client.
IM: And how this scenario is reflected in the office market, which has suffered a great thud in the pandemic and has now been recovering. What are the main bets in this sector?
RB: See, the office market slowly recovered, which leads to a gradual decrease in the vacancy rate. Even before Covid, there were few deliveries and little stock in the city of São Paulo, even for the difficulty of land.
Now some sectors have increasingly demanded the presence in the offices. Today, the vacancy rate at Faria Lima is 2%, in Nova Faria Lima, 7%. In Paulista, it is 1% of vacancy. This made the prices of these regions also increase.
In this scenario, we often have to work in B markets, not only in high standard offices, but also the oldest, lower standard offices, but have current availability. Today the regions with the highest vacancy are Chácara Santo Antônio (34%), the Pinheiros River region (43%), Vila Olímpia (17%), Barra Funda (31%).
And the impact of interest follows the same dynamics of making money out, but in the office market I would say it is even worse because the construction cycle is greater. A shed is built in 12 months, an office in 36 months.
IM: And this cycle of high interest rates should be maintained, there are projections that indicate fall only in the second half of next year. What are the perspectives for 2026?
RB: It’s that story of seeing the half -filled, half -empty glass: it won’t get worse. And that is something. Next year the scenario should remain similar to what it is.
As a company, what we have to do now and next year is to maintain status, hold expense, bet on recurring revenue services, try to earn market to, when the economy improves and interest rates fall, we are ready for actual growth. And bet that, at some point, we will live that story that Brazil is the country of the future.
