Last week El Inmobiliario, a digital newspaper, published a review about the official birth of the first Real Estate Cooperative (COOPINMOBILIA), created to provide services, especially to the Dominican real estate class.
A group of professionals linked to various prominent firms took the initiative and launched this entity, which seeks to support real estate agents in their financial solutions, creating various products for their different needs.
“To be the leading cooperative in the national market with an international presence, offering quality financial and solidarity services that guarantee the economic sustainability and well-being of its members,” is the vision with which the organization identifies itself.
The International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) states that cooperatives are values-based enterprises that share a set of principles and work together to build a better world through cooperation. They are based on fairness, equality, and social justice. Thanks to these values, cooperatives around the world enable people to work together to create sustainable businesses that generate long-term prosperity and employment, says the international organization.
"Cooperatives build a better world" was the slogan chosen for the celebration of International Cooperative Day #CoopsDay commemorating the International Year this year.
As Bruno Roelants, Director General of the ICA, explained, “Cooperatives are responding to the warning issued ten years ago by Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General, who cautioned that the world is ‘on the brink of disaster and heading in the wrong direction.’ To restore trust and inspire hope, cooperation, dialogue, and understanding are essential.”.
The ICA presented this weekend the World Cooperative Monitor 2022 with the new ranking of the largest cooperatives on the planet, reflecting a total turnover of more than two trillion US dollars (2,171,000 million USD) according to 2020 economic data.
This report provides a solid database for the cooperative movement, showing not only the economic importance of this business model, but also the concrete impact that cooperatives and mutuals around the world have on their respective communities and members.
In the Dominican Republic, cooperative assets are around RD$250 billion, approximately US$5 billion. Furthermore, the sector boasts a loan portfolio exceeding RD$139 billion and a delinquency rate below 5%, as reported by Franco de los Santos, director of the Institute for Cooperative Development and Credit (Idecoop), in October of this year.
In the last two and a half years, the sector has experienced real growth of 148%, going from 700 active cooperatives in 2020 to 1,742 in August 2022.
This business model represents a new opportunity for real estate agencies and their agents to raise awareness about the importance of creating a culture of saving and participating in solidarity programs such as cooperatives, which offer financial solutions to their needs with a social purpose.
