On September 20, 2024, Realestate.com.kh (REAKH) officially launched The Connect Centre, a new hub dedicated to professionalising the real estate industry through international standard training, workshops, and industry events.
The Connect Centre hopes to act as a platform for innovation and collaboration, hosting several events, educational sessions, and exclusive sales opportunities for buyers, in order to strengthen relationships between key players and foster a more transparent, trusted, and sustainable real estate market in Cambodia.
What Is Realestate.com.kh's Connect Centre?
Open seven days a week, REAKH state that the centre's main mission is to empower stakeholders with the latest market insights, trends, and expert analysis, giving agents, developers and buyers the tools needed to make strategic and informed decisions.
“Connect is about bringing the market together, as it's more important now than ever for the market to come together to work towards a more sustainable market in the long-term," said Tom O'Sullivan, Director and CEO of REAKH, during an interview with B2B Cambodia.
Earlier in May 2024, REAKH launched the ‘Connect’ digital platform during the Cambodia Real Estate Awards 2024, which O'Sullivan explained is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform for the real estate market in Cambodia, allowing agents, developers and other real estate-related services to do transactions, referrals and co-broking.
“The Connect Centre is really an extension of that," he added, bringing together buyers, investors, developers and agents together in one place to engage in offline activities.
[With the Connect Centre] we can do a lot more things offline like educational seminars, training, exclusive sales events, and we're also open seven days a week, so buyers or investors can come in and look at six or seven of the top developments, [for example].
“For agents, we'll be running trainings all of the time, so they can come in and learn about how Realestate.com.kh can help grow their business. We'll also be doing developer-focused events, so presenting our data and hopefully allowing them to make more informed decisions around what they decide to build in terms of new property. And then we extend this to real estate-related companies too, so we might do events with architects, banks, trust companies…"
It's really an offline, I guess, representation of what we do at Realestate.com.kh and with Connect, bringing everyone together and hopefully building more trust, innovation and a sustainable real estate market going forward.
Empowering Agents, Buyers And Developers – Educating The Market In Cambodia
REAKH believes that real estate agents are set to benefit from the from the increased access to extensive training programs, sales tools, and professional support the Connect Centre will provide.
Some of the educational programming the centre is planning to host, O'Sullivan shared, include seminars on Cambodia's new trust law and escrow services at banks, two areas which agents and buyers alike may not have a full understanding of yet.
“For example, a few years ago, there was a new trust law introduced in Cambodia, and people can now own land via a trust. Whilst this is a much safer way for international buyers to own land, I don't think enough agents in the market really understand how a trust service works... So with a space like this, we can bring in a trust company and educate agents and buyers and the market on how a trust actually works," he said.
“More recently, banks have created escrow services. Although not a lot of not a lot of buyers, people in the market or agents will completely understand how an escrow works, so again, we can bring in banks to talk about escrows,” O'Sullivan added.
Realestate.com.kh affiliate agents will be able to work from the Connect Centre, providing them a central location to meet their clients. One affiliate manager, Phany Choun, shared his excitement about the new hub:
The Connect Centre is the ideal place for me to run training for our growing agent base. Having the leading developer models in the same room also allows me to give an overview of the best properties Cambodia has to offer.
“We want to train 1,000 agents within the next six months… we're very, very well set up to support agents, so at the moment, we are sort of opening our arms to all of the agents in the market," added O'Sullivan, about the centre's aims in the next six months.
For property seekers, in addition to the educational sessions on offer, expert guidance on the property search process can be sought out at the Connect Centre, which also provides exclusive pre-sale opportunities and early access to new developments.
A Collaborative Space For The Whole Real Estate Industry
Developers can expect to utilise the Connect Centre as a platform to showcase their projects to an engaged audience. The opportunity to gather valuable feedback from agents and buyers can allow developers to refine their offerings, making their projects more appealing and competitive.
Targeted marketing and sales events hosted at the centre can also help developers drive sales and raise brand awareness, while building strong relationships within the industry.
“We will also do networking events, for example, we're planning an art exhibition, fashion show, and different ways to bring the greater business community in Phnom Penh together, to enjoy the space, to network, and to learn from each other,” shared O'Sullivan.
Realestate.com.kh's Connect Centre is located at 312E0 Preah Monivong Blvd (93), Phnom Penh 12302. The centre is open seven days a week – 9 AM to 5 PM from Monday to Friday, and 10 AM to 5 PM on Saturday and Sunday.
Parts of this article were sourced from a supplied press release.
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