The French real estate company IAD is growing in Spain with its multi-level marketing strategy, similar to that applied by companies such as Avon, TupperWare or Thermomix, which it has modified to apply to the sale of apartments. IAD is boosted by the crisis that the real estate sector is experiencing and the need that pushes many small agents to look for a business model with few expenses, like the one offered by the French firm.
With its Spanish headquarters in Barcelona, ??where it has 31 people on staff in its 22@ offices, IAD has a network of 650 agents that grows at a rate of 30% annually. As a concept, “IAD offers an entrepreneurial opportunity to people looking for a change in life,” explains its general director for Spain, Mateo Lecocq.
Thus, he explains, about 25% of his agents are foreigners who left their countries to start a new life in Spain. On average, 80% of the agents it recruits are of this type, but since the summer, 35% of the new agents are real estate professionals. “Fewer apartments are being sold, and many warn that they do not have enough income to keep their business open,” he summarizes.
IAD uses new proptech technologies and requires its agents not to have a street-level store or employees. “We are committed to a digital and collaborative model,” he explains. Your agents can grow by “sponsoring” others: being responsible for their training and supervision, which in turn gives them participation in the commissions of the sales they generate.
“The best of our agents has a hundred in their network,” he says. Thus, each agent, in addition to the income they obtain from their apartment sales, earns a portion of the commissions generated by those they incorporate into the network. “We have been in Spain for six years and we are already growing through word of mouth because our model is beginning to be known,” says Lecocq. The firm also offers training and mentoring to ensure that neophytes learn the business, and those who already know it are integrated into the company’s practices.
“IAD wants to change the traditional way of working in the sector,” acknowledges Lecocq, and he himself came to IAD after 19 years at Avon, where he was director for Spain and Portugal. The real estate company, founded in France in 2008, managed 900 transactions in Spain last year, and earned six million euros, 25% more than a year before, despite the general decline in the market. The increase in the network, and the incorporation of experienced agents, lead him to predict that this year he will maintain this pace, although he will still have losses.
The firm, leader in the French market, has 50% of its network on the Mediterranean coast, the area where it started in Spain driven by its expatriate agents, mainly French. Its challenge for 2023, explains Lecocq, is to grow in large cities, especially Madrid and Barcelona.
