Decision-making in Real Estate

Abstract

The real estate industry is very extensive, there are many ways to participate in it, however, for the companies who are fully involved in this business, such as acquisition companies that buy and sell properties, how do they make decisions? Does it vary from country to country? Do socio/cultural facts or market analysis affect their decisions? The chosen companies were chosen from Spain and Finland, two completely different countries, different history, different culture, different market, however, they both are part of the European Union and both are considered first world countries. The methodology used for this research is a qualitative style, including a questionnaire and an interview of the representative of two businesses, one in Finland and another in Spain. The results obtained in the interviews correlated with the literature and the other answers in the questionnaire, therefore a deeper understanding of the strategies and focus was obtained. The literature includes information and analysis of the overall Spanish and Finnish economy, and the analysis of each real estate market in a big scale, as for the socio/cultural facts, there is information about country comparison, socio/cultural theories, and intercultural business communication. The results indicate that the market analysis is the most important fact, and neither of both countries think that it is not important, however the Spaniards believe that networking, and location are two socio/cultural facts that may enhance their expansion, facilitates the operations of buying and selling, and can stablish them in the market. There were many correlations between previous crisis, the 2007 crash in Spain and the 90’s crisis in Finland, both boosted the data analysis use in the real estate industry, how-ever, in Spain cultural facts still matter to get stablished as a company. In conclusion, market analysis will always be the most profitable data, however some countries like Spain prioritize networking as a factor for decision-making. As a recommendation, this thesis research should not be taken as an absolute truth since the number of participants was limited and it was based on qualitative research, therefore, the provided answers were very specific for each company representative situation and experience.