The combination of ideas with Mario Almonte and Bienvenido Paulino has had excellent results and has exceeded planned expectations.
SANTO DOMINGO – In 2007, two visionary twenty-somethings returned from Europe brimming with knowledge and with an entrepreneurial mindset firmly ingrained in them. Close relatives questioned how two young men who had just completed master's degrees in developed countries could talk about selling houses and working independently instead of becoming executives at some renowned company.
They explored various options, but lacking the resources to get started, and being the children of a real estate agent and a civil engineer, they believed the conditions were ripe and it would be easy to form a family partnership and launch a real estate business. However, not everyone is willing to take the plunge with two young dreamers, and when they told their parents, they quickly put the brakes on their "crazy" idea.
Knowing they lacked the resources to embark on this venture, one of the parents offered them 30,000 pesos, payable in a month and a half, along with many blessings. They started in a small shop in Naco with three desks and an air conditioner.
Looking back on their beginnings, Eros Camaño and Juan Chalas don't flinch when recounting their start. Fourteen years later, they are proud to have founded Plusval and to have followed their instincts, even though they didn't always have the upper hand.
Their philosophy was to make a difference in the real estate market with a fresh corporate identity. They were young but with broad, well-developed minds; they had strong competitors, so they set out to offer memorable customer service, prioritizing the certainty of well-informed and reliable advice.
“When you start to see small results, and not necessarily financial ones, but when you see families saving their whole lives to put the decision of buying or selling a property in your hands, and you do it well and don't make mistakes, and people see you several years later and thank you, that fills you with joy,” Eros narrates.
After several months in business, and before prosperity had arrived, Juan was offered a position in the financial sector where he had worked before moving to Spain, which made him hesitate. He needed to renew his faith in himself to not abandon the challenge. Today, he gratefully recalls his mother's words: "Keep going, you can do it.".
The merger has arrived
Just over a year ago, Plusval added the name Dominicana to its brand, the result of a merger with Venta Directa, a real estate company with nearly 15 years in the industry. The combination of ideas with Mario Almonte and Bienvenido Paulino has yielded excellent results and exceeded all expectations.
This revamped team, now composed of three young people and one veteran, has become an invincible machine that accumulates the largest number of exclusive projects in the central industrial park.
Paulino is a seasoned agent with nearly 36 years in the real estate field, possessing a pristine and impeccable reputation. He has become a guide for those he calls "my children," whom he watches over and stops if he notices any attempt to cross into the wrong direction.
Mario Almonte, the team's "Maluma," explains that they were united by a shared vision of helping others. "The difference between selling an apartment and helping someone make a purchase investment" is what defines us.
Together with his wife Lisa Rijo and Paulino, they had been developing joint businesses with their friends Eros and Juan, whom they knew before working in the industry. Continuing education is a key strength of the brand.
“Those who know me in this business hear me say the phrase ‘less is more,’ and sometimes people think about immediate results, but I’ve always looked a little further ahead. The union of two forces like ours, which complemented each other and had a very good relationship, could be the difference in being able to catapult them faster,” Paulino explains.
He is surprised by the results achieved with the union: “It has been such that we have been together for a year and a half and our productivity has increased two and a half times what it was individually. We have similar philosophies and visions.”.
Plusval Dominicana has 30 salaried employees, 165 brokers, and 5 branches in the National District, Santo Domingo West, Santiago, and Punta Cana. It offers more than 70 exclusive projects and between 3,000 and 3,500 properties.
"Joining forces with these young people," says the wise agent, "was simply about putting ideas and energies to work. Each one has their own strength, but above all, a defining characteristic is that we respect our differences; we are all pulling in the same direction, not individually.".
Every business has opportunities and threats, everything has its ups and downs. "As an industry we have grown very well and proof of this is the number of agencies that exist today. We don't know how many we are, but without a doubt there are thousands of people working in the sector nationwide.".
Eros observes that this growth is a strength that, because it is not organized, has become a threat to the sector: "There is no regulation of who enters, and the barrier to entry into the business is easy for all kinds of people who often provide inadequate service.".
Initially, they targeted a middle-class market with properties valued between US$100,000 and US$200,000, limited to the central business district. They have since expanded to include low-, middle-, and high-end clients, moving into Cap Cana, Las Terrenas, and the southern part of the country. From the merger, they inherited their leadership in economic development projects, spearheaded by Don Bienvenido; they are now venturing into the commercial sector, rentals are booming, and in short, Plusval is taking off and expanding.
A unique feature of this agency is their careful selection of the projects they sell. This meticulous approach guarantees buyers access to refined and reliable properties, where they can have all their questions answered smoothly and without delay.
As the backbone of its work, the company strives to ensure its sales force remains competitive in the market, providing them with ongoing training. “We have over 100 hours of training, many of them with world-class speakers who have come to the country exclusively to design our sales program from A to Z,” Mario points out.
He adds that from day one, a Plusval Dominicana salesperson receives induction and more than 100 hours of educational content, including courses on all aspects of the industry.
In fact, Eros explains, our management as leaders is currently more focused on training than on selling properties, managing our clients who are now our brokers whom we have to train to do a good job.
Its leaders have wanted the company to grow slowly but surely. They prioritize quality over quantity. It's one of the few platforms that doesn't charge its agents a registration fee because they focus on productivity. They have a low turnover rate, with staff who have been with the company for over 12 years. They don't want to call themselves market leaders, but they know they're at the forefront, and that fills them with pride and great satisfaction.
