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THE UPCOMING YEAR WILL BE CHALLENGING
WOMEN IN REAL ESTATE
Dragana Badnjevac Jasna Bajić-Ljubičić
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THE UPCOMING YEAR WILL BE CHALLENGING W
hy are there more and more women working in the real estate industry? What does having a lot of market competition entail for a company? How do you find good projects and clients today? Will property and rental prices continue to rise in the coming period? Those were the topics of a conversation we had with Jasna Bajić-Ljubičić and Dragana Badnjevac, owners of JD Properties and Consulting, an agency that offers clients a tailored approach in order to satisfy their needs and a wide range of services for the sale and lease of all types of properties.
"Being a woman in the real estate market is a benefit because by nature we are capable of multitasking, we quickly adapt to new situations, and we take responsibility," say Jasna Bajić-Ljubičić and Dragana Badnjevac, owners of JD Properties and Consulting, which provides a full range of real estate services
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JOVANA NIKOLIĆ
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JD PROPERTIES AND CONSULTING Your agency is an example of how a good partnership and a modern business concept can help it stand out on the market and be recognized as a trusted name. What brought you together as partners in the real estate business, and how do you explain the fact that women increasingly dominate this field?
— Long-term joint work in the real estate market with selected goals and a profiled approach, primarily for demanding clients in residential locations as well as business people who know what they want at all times, has influenced the development of each of us. Self-growth, constant learning, and improve-
ment connected us on many levels. Through continuous work, we improved ourselves and reached the point of establishing a joint business, a real estate agency, which is there to provide the client with a complete service, from the moment he contacts us until the realization of the legal work and even after that. Being a woman in the real estate market is a benefit because, by nature, we are capable of multitasking, we quickly adapt to new situations, and we take responsibility. Our sensibility is another asset that enables us to understand the complexity of the client’s needs, from the choice of location to the expediency of the space to aesthetics.
The real estate market is still expanding, and the competition in your business is high. Where have you positioned your niche in the broad spectrum of market potential?
— Competition implies that the market climate is very favorable, both for work and for expanding the local network at all levels in the field of real estate business. Our clients come first. Every client is offered a tailor-made service in accordance with his needs. As experienced agents, we carefully listen to our clients and carefully choose properties for them. Given the multidimensional business concept, our niche is wide-ranging, with an emphasis on properties as investments for our clients. For this reason, we focus on brokerage in the sale and lease of office buildings, luxury residential properties, and land with multiple uses. We strive to keep up with the changes in the market, monitor its potential and growth, and in turn, achieve the maximum benefit for our clients.
Brokerage is a specific and challenging profession since the real estate market never sleeps. How do you find good projects and clients today? How important is marketing, and how important is networking?
— The dynamics of the market are such that we all try to keep up with the times and quickly adapt to new business trends. Marketing is a business segment that represents a tool for creating and running a business. As such, it aims to strengthen the values that we represent so that we can reach new clients in a way that makes them aware of our professional approach. Our clients are business people with little free time, which requires us to be absolutely committed so that all stages of the work pass smoothly without wasting their time, which is the most important resource. We foster quality exchange relations with competitive companies, forming a network that represents an inexhaustible source of information and the potential for joint projects. We believe in quality relations with our associates and invest in them as much as possible, which results in the support of renowned law offices, notaries public, bankers, and business people for each of our projects.
You provide a wide range of services, from brokerage and property appraisal to investment management and the services of designers and architects. Which services are most requested by clients?
— We chose a portfolio of broad-spectrum services in order to move quickly and support each segment of the work. The dominant service is, of course, real estate brokerage, but we also note an increase in demand for side services, without which the real estate trade would not be coherent. We are aware that buying or selling property represents a major life or business decision, so we provide our clients with a safe environment and support through advisory services in the fields of investment, location selection, organization, maintenance, and aesthetics.
The Belgrade real estate market was exposed to dramatic changes on several occasions this year due to the influx of a large number of citizens of Russia and Ukraine. How did it affect your business?
— The last 15 years of business and survival in the real estate market have proven to us that all transformations in the market are possible. This increase in prices, as well as the influx of foreigners, caused a great commotion at first glance. This is merely a preview of what will occur in the upcoming business year, which will be challenging. The market is currently unpredictable because everyone anticipates the effects of the crisis. It’s very likely that the crisis will come up later and strike us just when everyone believes it has been avoided this time. Until then, the upward trend in prices will continue. Prices do not depend on loans but on cash, which is present in all business segments. The first hint of crisis will be felt in locations with office buildings; successful companies will begin to stagnate without the will to change and search for new space for their demanding workers. For now, there is continuous growth in turnover and rent. The result is an increase in prices, which is conditioned by the fluid flow of capital. The safest investment in the Balkans is real estate, not investment in business or innovation. Also, the presence of Russians and Ukrainians in our region is a result of the changes taking place in Europe. It is up to us, real estate brokers, to recognize clients who have come to settle permanently in our country compared to those who are in transit.
