ERA Real Estate, a global franchising leader within the Realogy family of brands, announced the signing of a master franchise agreement for Paraguay with Rutland S.A. This marks ERA Real Estate’s first expansion into South America. Rutland S.A. is led by owner Ernesto Orosman Gomez and CEO Francisco Manuel Gomez Mansilla. It will serve as the brokerage operations of Fortaleza, a nearly 30-year-old leading development firm. Fortaleza has approximately 200 employees and has developed notable recent properties as Boggiani, Molas Lopez and Carmelitas, creating more than 750 housing units. It has a current pipeline of more than 8,500 apartments in the coming years.
The Paraguayan real estate market continues to boom. Both sales prices and the number of multi-family housing projects are experiencing growth, especially in the capital city of Asunción. The number of homeowners in the region is 86,400 and doubles that of renters. The country of nearly seven million people has a homeownership rate of 76.3%. Paraguay has enormous potential and with the support from the ERA brand, we can quickly capitalize on the momentum that we are seeing in the region. The ERA Real Estate network includes more than 36,000 affiliated brokers and independent sales associates and approximately 2,200 offices throughout the United States and 31 other countries and territories. ERA Franchise Systems LLC (www.ERA.com) which operates the ERA Real Estate system, is a subsidiary of Realogy Holdings Corp. (NYSE: RLGY), a global provider of real estate services.