United Country Real Estate Announces International Expansion
September 3, 2009 (Kansas City, Mo.) – United Country Real Estate today announced the expansion into their first international market. The company officially launched its international expansion strategy with a market leading office in San Jose, Costa Rica. This office is among more than 40 new franchise locations the company has sold throughout 2009.
“As we considered many potential franchisees throughout
Costa Rica, it became clear that one group was perfectly aligned with our unique marketing strategy and what it can bring to the industry in their country. We are proud to welcome Arturo Guzman and United Country – Properties in Costa Rica to the United Country family. Prior to joining United Country, Properties in Costa Rica had clear leadership in web and other marketing for Costa Rica properties. By joining forces with United Country, they were able to significantly increase their marketing power to U.S. buyers. We plan to continue our international expansion and are currently looking at potential offices in numerous countries including Mexico, Canada and select additional overseas markets,” said Dan Duffy, chief executive officer of United Country Real Estate.
United Country’s unique marketing and sales program advertises lifestyle properties in Costa Rica to American buyers. The retirement, vacation, second home, coastal and mountain homes in Costa Rica are a perfect fit for the United Country system that specializes in these types of properties across the United States. The buyer clients of United Country are looking for properties like these already in the United States, so the extension to Costa Rica made sense. Today, more than 50 percent of the United Country – Properties in Costa Rica buyer clients come from the United States. In fact, Costa Rica is the No.1 country outside of the U.S. for American retirees.
“There’s unmatched strength in our system and we are definitely seeing growth because of it,” said Duffy. “Amid the downturn of the real estate market, many companies chose to become static when it came to investing in new initiatives. We chose to do the opposite. We felt there was no better time to refine our system and bring additional value to our franchise offering in areas including technology, marketing and strategic partnerships – all with the goal of propelling our franchisees ahead of the competition today and even more in the days ahead. Additionally, this approach allowed more U.S. buyers to view tens of thousands of lifestyle and dream properties from coast-to-coast and now Costa Rica. As a result of this approach, we are poised for amazing growth throughout the U.S. markets and as we continue our expansion into international markets in the years to come.”
About United Country
United Country Real Estate is the largest fully integrated franchise network of conventional real estate and auction real estate professionals in the United States. Based in Kansas City, Mo., the company has been an innovator in real estate marketing since 1925. United Country supports nearly 675 offices across the U.S. and in Costa Rica with a unique, comprehensive marketing program that includes one of the largest portfolios of property marketing web sites (more than 1,000 separate sites), seven proprietary real estate catalogs with a cumulative distribution of 1.5 million, an extensive, current buyer database and national advertising of properties to more than 90 million potential buyer prospects a week. United Country has been recognized by Dun and Bradstreet’s AllBusiness.com as the top U.S. real estate franchise, the Wall Street Journal as a top 1 percent franchise and Entrepreneur Magazine's Franchise 500® as a top 100 global franchise.