Most commercial enterprises, including those in the real estate sector, are primarily focused on maximizing profits. In contrast, our focus is on offering buyers and sellers the greatest possible added value.

Not selflessly, but responsibly. After all, buying and selling a residential property is one of the most important asset decisions in life. Doesn’t it go without saying that, as a real estate agent, you should focus your work primarily on the interests of your clients and not on maximizing your own profits? After all, undesirable developments resulting from a primary focus on profit can be observed everywhere – be it in the food industry, the healthcare sector or in so-called social media.

With our principle of prioritizing benefit optimization, we follow the principles of corporate purpose – in other words, a corporate purpose that goes beyond pure profit orientation. We are by no means alone in this: it would be premature to speak of a paradigm shift in the free market economy. But fortunately, the number of companies that see the main purpose of their products and services as benefiting people, society or nature is growing.

In short: Targeted matching brings prospective buyers and properties together whose search criteria and property characteristics match particularly closely. The better a property matches a prospective buyer’s expectations, the more willing they are to pay a higher price.

To achieve this win-win situation, we rely on reliable price advice, complete target group coverage, trustworthy property presentation and comprehensive security. Our team of specialists from the fields of architecture, real estate management, valuation, photography and videography combines their skills and experience with modern technology – and commits an average of around 200 hours to each real estate brokerage, i.e. around four times the usual time spent in the industry, which we have observed to be around 50 hours. This is because even the preparation of marketing, which is necessary for a secure sale at the optimum price, takes around 80 working hours for on-site stocktaking, research and preparation of missing property documents, measurements and calculation of living space, market value assessment, photography and videography, 360° tour programming, data entry, preparation of exposés and so on.

Priority profit orientation, i.e. the pursuit of the best cost/commission ratio, leads to problematic practices in the acquisition and execution of brokerage mandates – and, in my observation, is one of the main causes of the negative image of the estate agency sector.

One widespread practice, for example, is so-called free valuations, which are used to lure owners into placing orders by promising them unrealistically high sales proceeds. Real estate portals are also involved in this by intensively advertising free valuations in order to sell individual owner contacts to estate agents for several thousand euros.

Many brokerage orders resulting from this consumer deception disguised as a consumer-friendly service are subsequently processed with minimal effort. This can lead to considerable losses in sales proceeds for sellers and at the same time entail risks with regard to payment of the purchase price and property liability. Buyers, on the other hand, can get into financial difficulties if they are surprised by high expenses after the purchase due to a lack of property transparency and embellished property descriptions. It is also widespread to employ bogus self-employed persons with no training in construction or real estate management. These and other practices increase company profits, but at the expense of buyers, sellers and employees.

In an ideal market economy, the better brokers would push out the less good ones – and thus continuously increase the average quality of service. But the reality is different: The quality level remains low because the market mechanisms that lead to quality improvements in other sectors do not take effect in the estate agency industry. For example, private owners generally only sell once or at very long intervals, which means that estate agents lack the financial incentive to build up regular customers through customer satisfaction. In addition, it is difficult or impossible to objectively prove in retrospect that a better sales result could have been achieved. And there are no real quality standards that owners can use as a guide.

All of this leads to a market situation in which service quality cannot assert itself as a differentiating feature, which inhibits quality development. As high service quality is associated with higher costs and burdens the cost-commission ratio, many estate agents compete not for the best brokerage service, but for the brokerage contract – and invest more in corporate marketing and contract acquisition rather than in their actual task, the brokerage activity.

As mentioned at the beginning, buying and selling a property is one of the most important financial decisions in life. Jedes Maklerunternehmen und jeder Mitarbeitende sollte sich der damit verbundenen Verantwortung bewusst sein und die Kundenbedürfnisse in den Mittelpunkt stellen: Sellers want to sell safely and at the best possible price, while prospective buyers are looking for a property that fits their living needs and ideas as well as possible.

In order to do justice to both sides, estate agents should invest more time and resources in individual sales brokerage. In addition, they should employ permanently employed, trained experts instead of pseudo-self-employed all-rounders, as a beneficial brokerage service requires specialized and well-founded skills.

In summary, it can be said that the brokerage industry, which is repeatedly criticized for its lack of quality and questionable practices, could significantly improve service quality and trust by focusing on the principles of corporate purpose. However, this requires a conscious entrepreneurial decision not to focus on the most profitable cost/commission ratio, but on a brokerage service that offers buyers and sellers the greatest possible added value.