Jorge Torres Landa, president of the Querétaro State Council of Real Estate Professionals (CEPIQ), outlined the new agenda for real estate agents and industrial parks.
Querétaro is the fourth most important city in the country, behind only Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey. According to the National Housing Index published by the Federal Mortgage Society (SHF), housing appreciation in Querétaro was 7.2%, and for at least two decades, it has been a city with significant construction of middle- and upper-class residential housing.
Evidence of this dynamism is the fact that there are more than 8,000 real estate agents in the state; however, just under a quarter of them have any type of certification.
“The most important issue here is the professional association. It’s extremely large. Let me give you some figures: there are roughly 8,000 real estate agents in Querétaro, but each association has between 100 and 150 members. There are about 670 registered with valid licenses through 2026, and around 1,800 have been registered since the real estate license was created,” which would represent 22.5% of the total, Jorge Torres Landa, president of the Querétaro State Council of Real Estate Professionals (CEPIQ), told INMOBILIARE.
He added that the real estate market isn’t valuing the difference between a real estate professional with a solid resume and a neighbor who just sells houses. “Everyone can sell however they want, but if you want to sell to a Colombian, for example, and just go and trust them, well, that’s your risk.”
In announcing a new phase with CEPIQ, he said that another of his main objectives is to professionalize the real estate mediation center in Querétaro, “which has been attempted several times, but has never quite taken root like the one in Guadalajara, which functions well and where most problems between real estate agents and clients or between developers are resolved.”
When asked about forming more alliances with other associations, he urged AMPI to be more consistent: “I get along very well with the Mexican Association of Real Estate Professionals (AMPI). They invite me to give talks and attend conferences, but one thing I’ve criticized them for is that what they say and what they do are two different things, regarding adopting other dynamics and ways of working, and I think that’s why a national federation of brokers hasn’t been achieved.”
He added that the new CETIQ constitution includes two AMPI chapters: “Of the three AMPI chapters—Colón, San Juan del Río, and Querétaro—the first two are with us, in addition to the Querétaro Association of Real Estate Agencies, the Association of Women in Real Estate Services (AMSI), and the Union of Real Estate Professionals in Mexico (UPIM) from Mexico City. We have seven out of eight.”
Regarding the Querétaro Real Estate Law, in effect since 2017, he stated that it needs to be amended to prevent irregularities in property sales through social media.
“From my perspective, the most important thing is to update it on technological issues. To give you an idea, TikTok didn’t even exist in 2017. Forget about electronic signatures. Currently, people buy things by clicking on TikTok or Instagram, and from there they go to a website, access a CRM, and schedule an appointment with a person. But we need to understand these risks, because if people don’t believe that deepfakes and fraud are rampant, they won’t understand what’s coming. Soon, someone could clone everything,” he added, “How is it possible that we haven’t even updated our knowledge of these tools?”
Torres Landa added that CEPIQ isn’t for registering individuals, but rather for including real estate associations as a hub, a place where many companies in the same sector do more or less the same thing, “with similar rules and conditions that help us regulate ourselves and be strong in the face of the authorities.”
When asked about the new federal regulation to eliminate the professional license as identification in notary offices and other agencies in money laundering cases where the broker has to compile an investigation file for a property buyer, he questioned the work of the Tax Administration Service (SAT).
“I’m not a real estate advisor, but I am a developer. I hire many advisors and I own a real estate agency, but what you’re asking is worrying because the real estate broker is perceived as being persecuted by the SAT, and that always ends badly.”
“Shouldn’t you disable another form of identification simply to demand greater accountability, like the new CURP (Unique Population Registry Code)? How can you hold a commercial intermediary responsible? At what point does he become an investigator or a police officer?”
Source: inmobiliare
