Launched just a year ago by Martin and Vincent Pavanello, La Maison des Mandataires is aimed, as its name suggests, at real estate agents, the new independent real estate agents whose number has exploded in recent years. There are now almost 45,000 of them in France, all attached to networks which are becoming real juggernauts, like iad and SAFTI whose valuations exceed for one and approach a billion euros for the other!
This hyper-promising market and its realities are however relatively opaque, even unknown to most French people. Conversely, they are making the big investment funds salivate: Insight Partners, Tikehau, Permera and other Naxicap have invested several hundred million euros in them in 2021.
To see more clearly, we interviewed Martin Pavanello, at the head of this young company also in hyper growth.
The birth of the House of Agents project
Can you first introduce yourself in a few words?
I followed a very traditional path, a prep in Lyon after which I joined HEC in 2018. In the second year, I was looking for a job alongside classes and my brother had already launched projects in the real estate. He associated me with one of them: that’s where I discovered tech and, above all, the real estate ecosystem that I never wanted to leave. Today I manage La Maison des Mandataires in parallel with my Master 2 X-HEC Entrepreneurs.
How did you come up with the idea of creating your business to support agents?
During my gap year, I continued in this sector, but this time on the financial side. I actually joined Catella Asset management (since acquired by Arkéa) which makes large-scale investments in real estate.
I really liked finance and the industry, but I also realized the very long road ahead before arriving at really interesting and responsible positions. I also felt this appetite for entrepreneurship in me; I had already created a podcast where I interviewed entrepreneurs running real estate startups.
At the same time, my brother – also an entrepreneur and who left ESCP before graduating to create his first company – had written a white paper on real estate agents. It was from there that we understood that there was a real turning point in this market which was going a little under the radar, and that there was clearly a need to fill for these independents and their networks.
We therefore created our company in April 2021 and I gave up doing a second gap year internship to devote myself fully to it.
What agent needs do you meet and what is your business model?
First, we represent and defend these independents who are quite vilified by traditional real estate agents. In addition, these agents are very often people in professional retraining who need to be supported in all aspects of their new profession (management of their social networks, field tips, legal points, financial management, etc.). We therefore have launched a newsletter that tries to meet as many of their needs as possible: training articles, interviews with the best agents, inspiring videos, curation of articles that are useful to them, advocacy in the media, etc.
Today, however, our business model relies exclusively on networks of agents, who pay an annual subscription to our services so that we can defend their interests with public authorities, produce content for them, etc. One of our projects in 2022 is now to think about additional content, potentially profitable for agents, to help them even more in the exercise of their profession.
How were the first months after creating the company?
We immediately managed to bring together a large community of agents. Proof that the need and the hype around this model were real, our first LinkedIn post for the release of our white paper had 100,000 views! The white paper that truly launched the project was subsequently downloaded nearly 10,000 times in just a few days. Our webinars also brought together several hundred people from the start, and our newsletter now has more than 16,000 subscribers; we hope for 25,000 at the start of the 2023 school year.
We also carried out a sort of tour of France of the agent networks in the first weeks, in order to understand all the problems these companies were facing.
A booming real estate agent market
What is the reality of this booming market, and how can we explain this enthusiasm for this agent model?
I think that fundamentally, there is a real desire for independence and freedom among the French which is increasingly strong in professional life. In all socio-professional categories, from HEC students to residents of small towns, the number of people who want to create a business or simply work freelance has exploded in recent times (the State has counted some 100,000 business creations in January 2022, including many self-employed: it is by far the best month in history in this respect in France). This trend is now hitting hard the world of real estate, which was previously rather closed to this phenomenon and partly explains the phenomenon of real estate agents. The very strong digitalization of these companies and their organization into teams thanks to network marketing (Multi Level Marketing, which is exploding in Anglo-Saxon countries) are also part of the reasons for their success.
Today, there are around a million real estate transactions in France, including 700,000 “intermediated”. Agents currently carry out around 20% of these transactions which are not directly between individuals. This figure stood at only 5% a few years ago and our long-term belief is that this proportion will reach 50%, probably in 2-3 years.
In this new context, companies which bring together these independents such as iad, SAFTI or Properties-privées.com have grown at a spectacular speed thanks to a well-established sponsorship system. They are today valued at several hundred million euros while remaining almost unknown to the general public! We therefore expect future IPOs from these players, notably IAD which is already a unicorn and which is currently internationalizing.
How much do you see in the coming months for the House of Representatives?
We want to recruit fairly quickly to create even more quality content for agents but also to develop lots of new services and products that they need. We want to embark on the adventure of tech or business profiles, with an interest in the real estate sector without them needing to be experts: it is a profession that is learned on the job and which is exciting! But above all, we are looking for entrepreneurial profiles to develop many new projects with us. On the business side, the big challenge will be to monetize the audience we have acquired, while continuing to grow it.
