It was just a year ago, that Consorto was formed by award-winning international property broker, Philip Verzun.
He knew that the commercial real estate market in Europe reached an all-time high of around €265billion in 2018, with 47% being cross-border sales, according to data from BNP Paribas Real Estate.
And Philip believed that that buyer and seller transactions could be made quicker and more efficient by using a digital platform with AI-driven deal matching and deal-flow automation.
What is Consorto?
So, he set about creating Consorto – the first pan-European online marketplace for commercial real estate.
What is Consorto? Philip explains, “It was only after I became an international real estate broker when I truly realized how primitive and inefficient the European commercial real estate space still is.
“As an active broker, my network was growing and at some point, I started receiving more and more search request from investors for commercial real estate deals in the key capital cities across Europe. At the same time, a number of property owners in Europe contacted me online, asking to find overseas buyers, as their local mandated brokers often failed to reach leads outside their network.
“The first thing I did was to contact my personal network of realtors on selected markets, but this was not enough to cover the demand. So, naturally, I turned to Google for help – but what I found was thousands of real estate websites in local languages and long fill up forms and the response time was days if not weeks! Not only that, but many property listings were outdated and contained inaccurate information and most brokers would not even discuss sharing fees for client introduction.
“I also quickly learned that many interesting deals are ‘off-market’ and my email was getting full of NDAs (Non-Disclosure Agreements) in most European languages – all just so I can get the basic deal information!
“For the rare strong opportunities identified, the data exchange was very slow and complex, making the success rate for closing a deal very low.
“The seller side is often very secretive and instantly demands an LOI (Letter of Intent) and POF (Proof of Fund), but the investor is often reluctant to start sending over bank statements just based on a brief teaser.
Generate more quality leads
“So, almost out of frustration I started working on a solution to help brokers like myself to generate more quality leads and to improve property sourcing across Europe.
“I started building Consorto – an online tool to manage these property listings and search requests in order to connect relevant parties as fast as possible and to provide them with up to date available deal data from credible sources.”
Consorto’s B2B platform features commercial real estate listings from office, industrial, retail, hotels and resorts, land, mixed use, special purpose and development sectors.
There is also a wanted property section so verified investors and agents can post their target properties and destinations, as well as a special off-plan section so select investors can source properties that are planned or are being built.
The first notable steps forward came in Autumn 2018 when Consorto was chosen from more than 400 applicants across the Baltic States, Central and Eastern Europe, onto the Startup Wise Guys mentorship and accelerator programme.
Following that, Consorto won through to several more European proptech finals – including the Market category at the BuiltWorld Innovation Contest at Munich, which takes place in October 2019.
Register for free with Consorto
Consorto appointed experienced international agents to help advise on growth, including Ramon Luitweiler, Marco E. Tirelli and Chris Boswell.
Agents and developers register for free with Consorto to upload their properties and search for European commercial property opportunities. They only pay a fee upon sale.
Consorto, which has offices in the Netherlands and Estonia is also looking for more qualified and experienced staff to join its team.
During the next year, additional Consorto development, a growing, talented team and an expanding database of European CRE listings will help brokers sell even more property and investors find sought-after deals.
For further information about Consorto and to list and view properties, visit https://www.consorto.com/
