By Petr Zavadil

For the Post

Ivo Gavlas, one of the country's senior realtors, can also take pride in being one of the country's first entrepreneurs in his line of work.

"I used to say that we are the oldest auction and real estate agency in the country, because no one was faster," says Gavlas, 44, the founder and owner of Gavlas Agency. He registered his company April 4, 1990, just three days after it became possible to become a private businessman in Czechoslovakia.

Over the years, the Gavlas agency has developed into one of Prague's most well-respected and significant real estate firms, handling more than 100,000 square meters (1.1 million square feet) of properties per year.

The company is also noteworthy for handling auctions, which fall into two basic categories: the "execution" auction, also known as an enforced auction, and the standard voluntary auction. An enforced auction happens when a debtor cannot keep up with payments and his estate or property is confiscated then sold to the highest bidder.

"Our biggest asset is offering our clients total and comprehensive service," Gavlas says. He and his staff can serve clients in Czech, German, English, Spanish and Polish. And if his people can't handle a particular matter, he has partner companies ready to provide the necessary service.

Gavlas has three locations — in Prague, Ostrava and Brno — and employs a total of 35 people. Although more than 50 percent of the company's real estate market is in Prague, Gavlas is excited about the potential in Ostrava. With the upcoming investment of South Korean automobile manufacturer Hyundai, highway construction under way and the planned development of the former coke-oven plant Karolina into a new city-center facility, Gavlas' decision to establish a foothold on the north Moravian market is starting to pay off.

"Ostrava always had the lowest prices of flats and property and the slowest market growth, so profits were the smallest," says Gavlas. "Now our foresight and decision to stay in the market, even when times were bad, is coming in handy."

His expertise is valued by clients outside of real estate circles. "We did an analysis of the development of the entire north Moravian market for the year 2004 for CzechInvest," Gavlas says with pride.

After 16 years in the real estate business, Gavlas doesn't take ups and downs too seriously. "Any success is nice, but it's always easy to blow it," he says with a chuckle. "I can't get too carried away by whatever goes wrong or exceptionally well, because I would soon collapse."

Nevertheless, there are a few highlights from his rich career that Gavlas is happy to point out. He is especially proud of the names in the company's real estate portfolio — clients like ČSOB, PPF, Skanska and Komerční banka, to whom he has sold properties. Furthermore, he says, his company is highly regarded for its appraisals of properties and estates. "We were partnered with Ernst & Young in a recent [successful project] involving the assessment of the OKD apartment flats," he offers as an example.

Gavlas is also proud of the high professional standards he's maintained. His company is a member of the Association of Real Estate Agencies of the Czech Republic, where Gavlas is chairman of the Board of Trustees, and the International Real Estate Federation. According to Gavlas, such memberships fit with his sense of professional decorum and ethics.

"When an old grandma comes to sell her house for 5 million Kč [$227,000], we won't say, 'Oh, grandma, that's too much,' and the next day buy it off her for that price when we know the value is 30 million Kč," Gavlas says resolutely. "We try to establish trust."

The early years were difficult for Gavlas — he had no capital and readily admits that luck was a factor in his success. Perhaps his greatest stroke of good fortune came in the early '90s, when he was named the main auctioneer in the first real estate auction in modern-day Czechoslovakia.

"I was lucky to get this opportunity," says Gavlas, pointing to a framed black-and-white photo on the wall. "It was January 26, 1991. I felt like President [George Bush, Sr.] in the Persian Gulf War, with 16 microphones in front of me and everyone paying close attention."

It was an entirely new role for Gavlas, who worked in the Institute of Economics at the Academy of Sciences before the revolution. He got the auctioneer's job partly because he dealt in the theory of auctions while at the Academy.

The success of that first auction prompted him to establish his own firm. He started off with auctions involving sales of administrative estates, such as warehouses and factories. A year later he added classic real estate services, and in 1993 opened a branch in Ostrava, his birthplace.

The following year, he opened an office in Brno. The year 2000 also marked a milestone; Gavlas expanded from strictly commercial projects to residential real estate. Mortgages became the most recent service offered, starting in 2005.

Gavlas says he has no plans to expand his business in the future, instead preferring to concentrate on strengthening existing areas of service. And despite his success, another thing he has no intention of changing is his location on Washingtonova street.

"This is only our second location in Prague, and we really look forward to when they build the promenade," he says. "It's a lovely place with a lot of parking spaces and a great atmosphere."