Well-known Maltese real estate company Sara Grech yesterday announced an innovative tie-in with an international real-estate company, Engel & Volkers.

With 40,000 employees and 520 shops in 35 countries, Engel & Volkers is one of the largest real-estate companies in Europe.

Based mainly in Hamburg, it has opened shops in the UK, US and even China as well as South Africa, California and Spain.

Last year the company registered profits of €6 billion on sales amounting to €35 billion.

The tie-in with Sara Grech is an innovative move for Engel & Volkers in that the Sara Grech model of concentrating all agents in one site with only outlying lounges will be copied by the German company across its operations.

Sara Grech began its operations in 1987 and has recently moved into one building in Msida where it has its market centre. The company is now launching four purposely designed Engel & Volker Sara Grech lounges in Sliema, Attard, Fgura and St Paul’s Bay apart from a special yachting lounge at Portomaso. In fact, the company is also branching into the yachting business.

Bettina Prinzessin Wittgenstein, from Engel & Volkers international said the company specializes in offering prestige and high quality residences uniquely in up-market locations.

Raymond Bugeja, who heads the yachting sector, yesterday said yachting was a natural progression from property in that many people would first be tempted to lease properties and later maybe buy one. After that, they may look around to see about buying a yacht. The business is thus mainly in selling a lifestyle.

Sara Grech said that, in general terms, the real estate market has recovered over the past year from the slowdown it had experienced in 2011. Like anywhere else, the upmarket segments of the property sector have kept going strong, even in the years of recession.