Launch of Portal

Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA 17 October 2001 Grupo BBVA and Terra Lycos set up an estate vertical portal - Atrea (www.atrea.com) will offer all the services towards renting or selling houses to the consumer - For the professionals of the sector, Atrea will have tools for a more efficient management and development of their business 17 October 2001,- Grupo BBVA (BBVA E-commerce, S.A.) and Terra Lycos (Terra Networks, S.A.) announced yesterday their ownership in a firm for developing a vertical portal in the estate sector. The company, owned at 50%, is named Iniciativas Residenciales en Internet S.A. (I.R.I.S.A.) and will work under the trade-mark Atrea (www.atrea.com). The launch of the portal will be in this month. The main target of Atrea is to set up platforms that enable and make more efficient the work of the Estate Agents and the Property Developers. In addition, Atrea will put in a web site all the services that the consumer needs for buying or renting a house. With Atrea, BBVA and Terra Lycos believe in the estate market on line, through a model of business with a high transactional component. In Spain, the state sector makes EUR 54,000 million (ESP 9 billion), which represents a 9% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Furthermore, the main expense for a family is the purchase of a house, more than 25% of a family economy. Atrea will offer to the consumers services such as funding on line, renting contracts, insurance and appraisal; agency in the sale of real estate, etc. Besides, its offer will include give complete services related to the removals: private furniture and fixtures transport, ownership changes of services (gas, electricity, water, telephone, etc.), as well as the payments by banker's order. In addition, Atrea will provide to the sector professionals a wide package of software for improving their business management. So Agents and Property Developers will be able to carry out through this portal transactions such as sales and rent of real estate, publish their estate offers and manage the advertisement of their developments, see information like urban development, land classification, rules, trend of real estate prices by areas, etc. Atrea has been created with a multinational approach and has foreseen an international expansion, considering the Spanish-Portuguese spoken markets as the main target.
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