“You have to know how to be lucky!” Our Managing Director Michael Maile in an interview with Johannes Wosilat from The Hidden Champion

Last summer, Johannes Wosilat from the podcast and video format “The Hidden Champion” and our boss Michael Maile met in the cozy atmosphere of our office for a not entirely private one-on-one conversation.

Johannes uses his format to shed light on the people who achieve great things in their industry day in, day out and yet are not in the spotlight. With these hidden heroes, success often happens quietly, they do their work calmly and purposefully, like a lion in sheep’s clothing.

Michael Maile is our 4th generation managing director and has been working in the real estate industry for 20 years. He describes himself as a precrastinator and loves order. He discovered his passion for the real estate industry at an early age and took over and expanded the company from his father. He is very familiar with the market situation and understands the current issues in the real estate and construction industry. He also knows which adjustments are being made and will be important in the future.

What shoes are to a cobbler, real estate is to Michael Maile. In the video, he explains why he is positive about the future and thinks a lot of the next generation.

Youtube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_T0jRw_ksE

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6T4IfNS…
The homepage of The Hidden Champion with many more interesting interviews: https://www.thehiddenchampion.de/

Questions that Michael Maile was asked.

00:59 What was the best advice you ever got?
01:37 What was your biggest mistake?
14:15 What was your most important decision?
19:42 What do you think of hierarchies?
21:53 How important is perfectionism to you?
32:39 Your heroes in reality?
33:03 What do you value most about your wife?
34:00 What do you think of the saying “Cobbler, stick to your last”?
40:10 What makes a hidden champion for you?

Transcript

Interview with Michael Maile

Johannes: If you want to sell a property in Stuttgart, don’t be surprised if your mailbox bursts, the phone never stops ringing and viewings take up the whole weekend. But my guest today makes sure that this doesn’t happen. He is the managing director of Maile Immobilien and has a special attitude. He says: “I don’t want a huge team.” We will now find out what experiences and attitudes lead him to make this statement and how he manages to be successful. A warm welcome to you! Michael, it’s great to be in your office here in Stuttgart.

Michael: Nice to meet you. That’s what it looks like. In the heart of the city.

Johannes: What was the best advice you ever received?

Michael: Difficult question. I would say: actually being authentic. In my opinion, being authentic is incredibly important and the basis for long-term success. This advice was given to me very early on by a person who I knew had achieved a lot in life and, above all, had achieved it in a good way. This is also a credo for me and, unfortunately, not always a given in the context of real estate. Perhaps we’ll come back to that later. But I think it’s very important to just be yourself and be authentic.

Johannes: What was your biggest mistake?

Michael: Very difficult, because I can’t really say that. I find it almost difficult to say that there have been very few low points in my life. Even if it’s perhaps unpopular to say that, because nowadays people like to talk about some really bad experience from which they’ve grown a lot or something like that. I didn’t really have that experience. It was always consistently successful. So I can’t really say that. There were certainly a lot of mistakes and perhaps the biggest mistake is not knowing what the biggest mistake was. But the bottom line is that there wasn’t one big mistake, at least not that I know of.

Johannes: So you’re a lucky child?

Michael: I really am a Sunday child. I was born on a Sunday. Even friends keep saying, half seriously, half jokingly, that I really am a lucky child. But that’s always the question. There’s a nice saying that I use myself from time to time: “You also have to be lucky.” Everything has gone very smoothly for me, not only at work but also in my private life, and somehow always a little bit as you might have imagined. I hope it continues that way. But the bottom line is that things have always gone well. I would like to be very grateful for that. You always take a lot of things for granted and think that’s just the way it is and that’s how it’s always been. It’s also good to take a step back and say: “Hey, be grateful for what you have.”

Johannes: When I came in, I heard someone whistling while the technical equipment was being set up. Then you came in singing and whistling. I thought that was a nice atmosphere.

Michael: My trademark. The atmosphere in our office is very good and that’s something we attach great importance to. We have a great team and flat hierarchies, and the atmosphere and team spirit are important to us. I think it’s something that characterizes family businesses to a certain extent. We are a classic family business. I am the fourth generation. Thank goodness, you might say, because they always say: “The first generation builds it up, the second makes it bigger, the third tears it down again.” I am now the fourth.

Johannes: So you’re over it now?

Michael: We’re over it, yes. Although that was even partly true for us. My father, who was the third generation, also struggled in some places. Whether it was self-inflicted or not is another matter. But those weren’t always easy times and so it’s probably a saying that’s often not so wrong. It has a bit to do with the upbringing of the third generation and also with socio-economic factors. Perhaps my father’s low points also shaped me to some extent. We were never on the street or anything like that, but there were some tough times that I experienced as a teenager and that certainly influenced my actions at the start of our company or mine.

Johannes: Please describe that a bit more: How did it feel? How old were you during the difficult phases?

Michael: I was around 16, 17 to 18, 19. I’m the eldest of four siblings and naturally you always have a certain responsibility or sense of responsibility towards your siblings. That really shaped me, because I realized: Okay, it’s not all a matter of course. We grew up privileged, with a nice little house and regular vacations. Not incredibly rich or anything like that, but really very privileged, with a private school. I actually went to the Waldorf School. It was a very happy 13 years

Johannes: Can you dance your name?

Michael: It’s clear that the line is coming. I think I can actually still do it. That is certainly something that has shaped me to a certain extent in my actions and in my daily work. I had a very happy childhood and youth. When things got a bit more difficult for my father economically, I realized for the first time: “Hey, it’s not all such a no-brainer” and you have to look at things: Where do mistakes happen? I’m certainly a bit different to my father in terms of analysis and active implementation. I don’t want to go into too much detail about him now and we have a very good relationship. I am very grateful for my father. He’s more of a procrastinator, I think that’s the new German word for it. In other words, someone who tends to put things off if they don’t suit him. I’m more of a precrastinator, someone who wants to get things done very quickly, which isn’t always a good thing. It’s also not a bad thing to leave things lying around sometimes, at least for a short time. Some problems or issues then even solve themselves. Let’s take a trivial example: some stupid email from a customer who is not satisfied for some incomprehensible reason – thank goodness we don’t really have this, but let’s take it as an example. If you then reply immediately out of emotion, because it has to be dealt with immediately, it can sometimes be worse than if you leave the message for a day. Then the customer calls again later and says that the problem has been resolved. That’s such a trivial example. I’m someone who is very organized and tries to work through things reliably and get them done or make sure they’re done in any case. My father is a bit different. In such crisis situations, it’s sometimes not an advantage if you put things off, but rather if you try to solve things quickly.

Johannes: Did that also have an influence on how you continued to run the family business? You have to explain a bit: You had your father’s property management company and then you founded “Maile Immobilien”.

Michael: Exactly.

Johannes: Your brother has taken over the administration and you have set up your own business. The topics are very close. Was it your father’s nature that led you to say: “I’ll start my own business, then I can organize things the way I want.” Was that because of that? Did you say, “I don’t want to take over and continue doing things the way he’s been doing them, I want to do my own thing”?

Michael: Well, I think the first thing to say is that he never pushed for me to take over the family business in any way. Even though it quickly became obvious that it could happen, because it became clear very early on in my youth, when I worked in the company as part of a vacation job, that I was simply very interested and fascinated by real estate and that I might have a certain knack for it and I got to know customers early on. Nonetheless, he always emphasized to the end that it was not in any way decisive or important for him. I assume that he was pleased somewhere along the line. I’m now the father of two sons myself. Of course, you can imagine that it would be great if it were passed on to the next generation. But he never exerted this pressure. I actually started my own business while I was still at university and it was of course the perfect time for it because you have very few fixed costs, for example. You’re free and not tied down by family or possibly a partner and can develop freely. And it was actually the perfect time for it. To come back to your question about how I did it, the way I did it certainly also has to do with the influence of my parents, I’m one hundred percent convinced of that. You try to copy the positive things. Especially in family businesses, I believe that it is always a mixture of genetics. So this family-business-genetics thing, that you simply adopt certain topics and of course also experience that such a company simply has. These are certainly important aspects that have played a role for me.

Johannes: Or security, because you already have a customer base that you can build on?

Michael: It’s definitely an argument, no question about it. Yes.

Johannes: People always say: “You’re safe when you’re employed and somehow not when you’re self-employed.” But a family business can also be “not secure” because the family construct also plays a role. Where do people argue the most?

Michael: I would also say that Germany has a lot of family businesses, right up to the really big ones, for example VW, Porsche, Aldi and so on. But of course there are also a lot of smaller ones and, without knowing the statistics, I would say that half of them are doing a very good job. In some cases, they even do an above-average job, right up to world market leadership. The other half, however, is certainly the same as the cliché that sometimes arises when people talk about dusty, not particularly innovative, patriarchally managed family businesses. As you might sometimes find in the craft sector. At least that’s where I know that you often come across companies where the man is the boss and the woman does a bit of secretarial work and everything still has a bit of a 70s feel. That also exists, but the bottom line is that I think a family business can be a great structure.

Johannes: Definitely, especially if you get on well.

Michael: Yes, we have a great advantage here. We have an excellent relationship within the family with our father, but also between me and my brother, who then took over the administration relatively unexpectedly. He was initially involved in the start-up sector and then also in an innovative area at Bosch and he then said, quite surprisingly, that he somehow had a taste for entrepreneurship. That was a great stroke of luck for me. We have a great relationship, and of course we also work together in some areas. That’s actually how we see it in the long term.

Johannes: And you also have a beautiful bond.

Michael: Totally. He’s the youngest. I’m the oldest of the four siblings. The other two are more the artists. Very talented artists. My sister is a make-up artist, my other brother is a music producer. They went in a different direction and to this day have never been interested in doing anything in real estate. But again, the two of us – and that’s probably often the case in the family constellation, the first and fourth are somehow similar again – complement each other quite well. It’s also nice to have a little sparring partnership in this professional context and to exchange ideas from time to time.

Johannes: How many years have you been working together? You’ve had the company for 13 years now, right?

Michael: I’ve had the company for almost 20 years now. Since 2003.

Johannes: 2003. What was the most important decision for you from that point on?

Michael: Basically, we have grown really solidly and continuously. But what gave us a lasting push and was a very important decision in retrospect was actually securing our domains. We operate in a very competitive market. The real estate market, especially in Stuttgart, is simply very tight and there are many players, from large franchises such as Engel & Völkers or von Poll to small one-man shows, who don’t do a bad job and often have good contact networks. It’s a highly competitive market and we were able to secure domains such as www.immobilien-stuttgart.com or www.stuttgart-immobilien.de at a certain point. For whatever reason. I was even surprised at the time that they were still available. This has given us a very high ranking on Google, among other things, right up to the present day. We invest relatively little in online marketing campaigns because we simply have a good ranking thanks to our website, our presence and the domain. Reviews also play a role. It’s an algorithm that nobody knows one hundred percent. But Google is the most important platform, to be honest. Even if we are personally recommended, which is always the best thing for us, many customers still check the Google ratings or the ranking and then the website. I think that was a very important decision, on which a lot of things then bore fruit and built up.

Johannes: Do you see your competitors as competitors or is it more of a competition in Stuttgart, where people say: “You have to see where you are?”

Michael: Competitors and competition. For me, they both go in the same direction. There are also partnerships. We also have a small internal network of real estate experts. People from the industry who have very sound knowledge and who also have a lot of experience because they have been on the Stuttgart market for a very long time. We also meet regularly and exchange ideas. Of course, it’s also competition, it has to be said. There are always joint ventures, which is not unusual. I also very much welcome that. It is much more common in other countries. However, we should not compare the real estate markets internationally. You can only go across the border to Holland, where you have a completely different market. In Holland, it is similar to the USA, with a much higher fluctuation. People actually buy much more than they rent. This also has to do with the ownership rate. There are still a lot of tenants in Germany. In countries like Holland, for example, to name a neighboring country, the ownership rate is much higher and that’s why a lot more people sell and buy. Different commission rates or flat rates are possible for estate agents there because there is much more “turnover”. Here in Germany, especially in Swabia, it is often the case that once you have bought a property, you never sell it again. It is inherited and, for God’s sake, nothing is sold. I hear that again and again, no matter how little sense it makes to hold on to the property.

Johannes: There are also properties that have been undeveloped for 50 years.

Michael: Of course. I mean, if you look at the development over the last 10 – 15 years, these people have of course been absolutely right, because the performance has simply been so positive. But nevertheless, there are always clients to whom I have to say clearly: “The property makes no sense at all.” I had a conversation with a client just yesterday. The older generations in particular are currently very anxious about the Ukraine crisis and the like. They are wondering what lies ahead for them. And then there is a lot of talk of currency reform and expropriation. Nevertheless, some of these properties are old and have a lot of renovation work to do. In the case of owner-occupied properties, such as detached houses, this is not worthwhile anyway. But even with small apartments and investments, it’s the same. When you reach a certain age, what you put into it now and possibly the entire renovation of the house on top, with insulation, windows, roof and all these energy-related issues, will never pay off for this owner in their lifetime. Sure, if you have children and say: “I definitely want them to have and inherit everything and I don’t want to leave them anything in need of renovation, I want it to be a top property.” This is justified, but if you look at it purely in terms of figures, it is often nonsense to stick to these properties. You should also reallocate, diversify and say: “Hey, we’ve got a big property that nobody can really use.” A classic example is your parents’ house. A huge bunker and in need of complete renovation. You put another half a million into it, if that’s enough. Why not sell it and then buy three small apartments to spread the risk? Or perhaps an age-appropriate apartment? Maybe you can move in there yourself and then rent out two others or something. These are just thoughts. You simply have to guide the customers a bit.

Johannes: You said that you have very flat hierarchies here. Was that the case from the start?

Michael: Yes, I would say that our father was also someone who had a very good rapport with the employees. He was on a first-name basis very early on and always had a positive, engaging talent. Even if something didn’t go so well, he was able to make up for it with his positive manner. I think we learned that from him too. And of course, today’s generation is completely different. We’ve recently seen how much importance is placed on this in staff appraisals and job interviews. We have this wonderful symbiosis of a traditional family business that is very stable and yet has very young managing directors, which is well received. My brother is only in his early 30s, so he really is still very young

Johannes: And you?

Michael: I’m in my late 30s, so I’m eight years older than him and still have the three in front of me. Not for much longer, but that’s fine. I don’t really have a problem with getting older either. Our employees really appreciate having such young managing directors in a company with a long tradition. We have barbecues together, have great meetings and enjoy doing things together. It’s very important to us that you always go into the company in the morning and leave in the evening with a good feeling. I think that’s simply fundamental these days.

Johannes: That’s the reason why you get up.

Michael: Yes, and it also allows you to handle difficult situations much better. We often have situations where employees say: “If I had been sitting there alone dealing with this issue, it would have been unpleasant. But because the team stood by me and helped, the issue was resolved immediately.” For example, with a stupid owner, who thankfully doesn’t actually exist in our company, whose house we manage. There are situations from time to time where things can get a little more stressful, of course. And that’s how it works perfectly.

Johannes: Are you a perfectionist?

Michael: Absolutely.

Johannes: Too much?

Michael: I’m a very perfectionist. I have very high standards and it starts with my desk, where you rarely see anything lying on it.

Johannes: I see water, a pen, a cup and a cell phone.

Michael: I actually feel uncomfortable when things aren’t tidy. Even with small children at home, I have to get used to the fact that it’s not always tidy. Nevertheless, I tidy up with the kids in the evening. I’m a perfectionist and I think it’s okay and not too much. There are also people who overdo it in this area, and that’s not acceptable either. But in the office, tidiness and a clear line are very important to me.

Johannes: Tonight 7:00 p.m., tidying up my house a bit, are you in?

Michael: Yes, maybe I should make a business out of it. But I think there are already a few providers in this area. I don’t think it’s that difficult. It’s like many things in life. Once you start doing two hours of sport every morning and keep it up for three months, it’s somehow no longer difficult. Once you start consistently putting things away where they belong, it’s no longer an act to do it briefly every time. That’s kind of my credo.

Johannes: Your credo. I’m a little different.

Michael: What kind of households do you think I see? That’s the most interesting thing about our job, that you get to know so many people and their personal environment. It’s sometimes great and impressive, even in a positive way, but of course it’s also sometimes really hard.

Johannes: Please give us an example. What was the most violent thing you saw?

Michael: There are simply people who have their issues, sometimes to the point of being a messie. I recently met a landlady who wasn’t allowed to have anything on the floor, she has to put everything up somewhere. Nothing is allowed to be on the floor and there are things all over the shelves and it looks quite bizarre. I spoke to her about it in person and she admitted to me that it was a certain mental disorder. It’s always interesting to see what kind of people are out there.

Johannes: That would appeal to me too. To see how others live. Otherwise you don’t have much insight, except with friends. But not with other people you see out on the street.

Michael: Yes, it’s also very often interesting to see the family and personal background behind these properties and how much appearance there sometimes is and how little reality there is. Or how brutally divided some families are. Unfortunately, inheritance disputes or divorces are often a main reason for selling with us, where we can also offer extreme added value, simply because we are a neutral authority. Personally, I think I get on well with everyone. Certainly a great strength of mine. I think I’m a born mediator, in fact I was one as a child or teenager. I’ve always had broad shoulders and have never experienced any disputes in that sense, even in a sporting context.

Johannes: Maybe because of the big shoulders?

Michael: Possibly, exactly. But also simply because I was always good at communicating and always knew how to approach people in a positive way. That also plays a big role in my job.

Johannes: Suppose a married couple are at odds and decide to separate. Is the solution then always to sell the house straight away? Or are there other models?

Michael: A divorce is usually a very complex matter. There are prenuptial agreements that regulate such issues. Especially if someone is an entrepreneur, prenuptial agreements should be almost mandatory so that the company is not dragged down with them. Even with prenuptial agreements, things usually remain complex. This is because you usually have to go back to the date of the wedding with a community of accrued gains and then look back and see who had what when, and what was added when and what is excluded? Perhaps gifts from parents and inheritances etc. It’s highly complex and that’s why lawyers always make a lot of money, because sometimes it can’t be solved without lawyers. But to talk about the house: There are often a lot of personal memories and emotions associated with it and we often see both spouses say: “We don’t want to live in this house anymore because it was a certain period of our lives that was justified and we were happy with children. But now it’s being sold and everyone is going their own way.” This is often absolutely necessary because one party wants to be paid out and a lot of capital is tied up in the property, which is sometimes not so easy to manage without the sale.

Johannes: You need a small team of specialists.

Michael: What’s even worse is actually the community of heirs in dispute. That’s actually the most complex issue.

Johannes: That’s probably why many properties just stand there forever.

Michael: Yes, that’s right. We have just sold another property that has been empty for three years. There are five siblings, some of whom are spread all over Germany. There have always been four of them who were at odds with each other. The fifth, who hadn’t been seen for 30 years, promptly turned up and demanded his share. That’s why it’s been lying fallow for three years. Now they have finally decided together to commission us and put the issue behind them. You have to speak plainly in advance so that it is really clearly defined and when we tackle it, everyone pulls together and nobody blocks it.

Johannes: And you need a thick skin and staying power.

Michael: Yes, I always have a very good relationship with everyone. It’s always important to give everyone a good feeling and to take everyone along and to value everyone in some way and not give anyone the feeling: “Hey, your brother knows his way around here better and I’ll sort it out with him.” That’s really important. It really does require extreme sensitivity.

Johannes: You also said in the preliminary interview that you do voluntary work?

Michael: I am and have always been an enthusiastic basketball player and then, probably ten years ago now, I took over the management of the PKF Titans basketball club in Stuttgart on a purely voluntary basis. We were able to find a great naming rights sponsor in the form of PKF, a large commercial law firm from Stuttgart-Degerloch. It’s a bit like my return to society. They’ve given me a lot about the sport, about basketball, and that’s a bit of what I like to give back and, of course, it’s also a bit of fun. It’s time-consuming, but it’s also very successful. We’ve developed very well and are very successful and it’s just nice to see. I just know that a sport like this can give children and young people in particular an incredible amount and shape them. This team building and working together towards a goal and supporting each other, which is ultimately the same thing in green at our company. That’s reflected there and it’s fun. It’s my little hobby, if you like.

Johannes: I interviewed Titus Dittmann a few weeks ago and he has a very similar urge to give children access to exercise, access to skateboarding. If you can do that, then they don’t need to work. That was one of his sayings, he said: “I don’t want to work, I have fun 24 hours a day. I earn money with it, that’s the cool thing.” I think that’s what he wants to pass on to the children, that they work on goals and have fun and achieve their goals by having fun.

Michael: We also regularly have interns, most recently last week. In this case, it was actually a student intern who is also a basketball player. It came more through the club and of course I also know to some extent that they have been playing in a team like this for years and play a sport where reliability and teamwork and a certain organizational talent are important. If you have to reach a certain level, then you simply have to set yourself certain goals and plans. Then you notice this immediately in your day-to-day work. These are never kids who shuffle in here and don’t know what to do with themselves, or then curl up in their office chair with their cell phone, but rather intelligent, bright young people. In other words, I think it’s a great generation. For example, I’m not one of those people who always demonize the younger generation, as you sometimes hear in the sense of: “The youth of today, they won’t amount to anything”, but I see a lot of young people who make me think: “Wow, there’s a cool generation coming up.” It’s never true for everyone, that’s for sure. But I’m also optimistic. I’m also optimistic that we can get to grips with the major problems we have on this planet.

Johannes: Do you have a hero in reality, someone where you say: “This is a role model for me?”

Michael: No, I haven’t. I couldn’t name anyone. There are many people who I admire to some extent for a wide variety of topics. But the one person who makes me say: “I’d like to be like that” doesn’t exist.

Johannes: What do you value most in a woman?

Michael: There are many things that I value. I’m very lucky to have found an all-round good and great wife who has my back quite a bit. Especially with the kids and with household issues and the like. She is a train conductor who, as I mentioned before, comes from the Black Forest. Maybe that’s because the Black Forest girls simply still know how to tackle things. She is creative, which I also really appreciate. An incredibly creative person who is also an artist herself and has been on stage as a musical actress for a long time and has really achieved a lot and played the biggest roles. But then, for our sake, for the sake of the children, she turned her career back a bit. Which I also really appreciate. I’ve been very lucky.

Johannes: What do you think of the saying “Cobbler, stick to your last”?

Michael: I actually think a lot of that, I have to say. Because I keep seeing people who want to offer the grocer’s store and get lost and don’t focus on their core competencies. That’s why I’m a big advocate of it.

Johannes: So you absolutely love your work and say: “I don’t do any other projects on the side, I live out my life completely in my real estate world.” Or are there also topics where you say: “Hey, I’m interested in this and I could immortalize myself in this project, even if it’s not 100% my core competence, but then maybe I’ll get the core competencies in.” For example, building?

Michael: In the real estate context, there are of course many possibilities and for me it all plays into the “cobbler’s work”, so to speak. Opening an advertising agency, for example, would be completely self-sufficient for me. I really don’t know enough about that. But we also have plans in the administrative area to simply cover certain services ourselves. Not only because we then know that they are of good quality, but also because we then regularly have someone on site in the properties, which is also exciting. We only manage apartment buildings and we don’t do condominium management. WEG management means that the house is divided into different land registers and different owners live under one roof. That’s a different kind of management. We do pure tenant management, i.e. when the owner owns the entire building. In other words, we are responsible for everything. That’s the all-round carefree package for customers, who often live abroad or far away, or simply don’t want to have anything to do with it. It is a quality requirement for us that we are also on site very regularly to check on things. We don’t just react when a tenant calls and says: “Hey, the tap in the basement has been dripping for weeks.” Or “the light hasn’t been working for months”, but to actively be on site and check that everything is in order. There are already certain considerations, also with regard to building. At the moment, however, it really is a very complex time, with these massively rising construction costs. Especially the cost of materials, and these are always projects that take years to complete. It’s not as if you say: “I’m building now and in a year’s time the house will be finished and everything will be ready.” Instead, it’s usually a project lasting around three years that you have to factor in. You can’t simply foist these price increases on buyers and say: “Well, he’s buying at a price of €500,000 now, but then it could end up costing €700,000 later because prices have gone up.” It’s risky at the moment, even for property developers. In the private sector, things are still a bit more manageable. Of course, there are also prefabricated house manufacturers who can simply guarantee certain prices and say “if you sign now, it will actually cost so and so much because we have the materials in stock and we can factor that in.” But if you’re building apartment buildings, then it’s a risk. At the moment, there are more and more issues in the real estate sector that are tipping the scales and causing prices to fall rather than rise. In particular, the current rise in building interest rates. Interest rates have risen massively in the last three months, by up to 2 %. And historically it has always been said that a 1% difference in interest rates makes a difference in purchase price of around 14%. So interest rates rise by 1%, purchase prices fall by 14% and vice versa. Now we still have inflation and a bit of fear, with Ukraine etc., which in turn are tipping the scales in favor of rising prices. But on the other hand, we have the interest rate increases in particular, but also the construction price increases, material costs, etc., which ensure that prices are pulled down rather than going up. If you know this as a property developer, you have to calculate that in two years you will simply have 20-30% more costs for construction, but customers may no longer pay these prices. In the past, people used to say: “Come on, just make the purchase prices 20% more expensive, it will still go away, the interest and everything will remain at zero for a long time to come.” We don’t have those times anymore and they won’t come back. I’m relatively convinced of that. Interest rates are now more likely to settle at 2.5 to 3 %, maybe even 3.5 %. And that’s already a big deal for many people, especially private buyers, who simply have to pay that out of their net income. We’ve already had a few cases in the last few weeks where buyers have ultimately backed out because their monthly installment has increased by up to €1,000 net. Just because of the increase in interest rates. In January, you asked the bank about the current interest rate and calculated with this for a purchase and now you get the current conditions and that is simply €1,000 more per month. If you extrapolate this over the term, it is no longer feasible for many people.

Johannes: I think my parents even paid 10% back then.

Michael: Yes, we are still in a historically very favorable time. You shouldn’t forget that. People are now simply spoiled by these favorable times with 1.2 – 1.3 %. But you first have to get used to that again. And they will. But it will take time and, in my opinion, it will also have an impact on prices.

Johannes: What makes a hidden champion for you?

Michael: A hidden champion? That’s a bit of what I like, too. Understatement. I think I’m basically more of an understatement than an overstatement kind of guy. I just feel comfortable with that. You simply get to know yourself better and better over the years and realize what you want and what you don’t want. What you’re comfortable with and what you’re not so comfortable with. In this real estate context in particular, there are also some dazzling figures for whom outward appearances play a major role. It’s also the cliché of the estate agent who drives up in a Porsche with a Rolex on his arm and earns a lot of money for little work. These are classics that don’t apply to us at all. Neither to me nor to our company in general. We tend to live this understatement and feel comfortable with it. For me, that’s what makes a hidden champion, that they don’t need to show it to the outside world. We also have many customers who are very wealthy, but you would never know it. I always find it impressive that they simply don’t need this ostentatious appearance. Perhaps that’s also part of the Swabian mentality here. In other regions, even in Germany, but also worldwide, it’s quite different. There you show it and everyone is happy for you when you drive up in a Porsche. It’s rather different here and I have to say that I feel more at home here.

Johannes: That’s why it’s the Black Forest, not Dubai.

Michael: Yes, absolutely. Ten times out of ten, I prefer the Black Forest to Dubai.

Johannes: 40 degrees is also unpleasant, I have to say.

Michael: I have also been to Dubai many times and even have an uncle who lives there permanently. So I know my way around Dubai very well. I find it very impressive what is happening there and what they are creating and what is possible if you have money and space. But living? No thanks, I couldn’t do that there.

Johannes: Thank you very much, Michael, for the interesting interview.

Michael: With pleasure, it was a lot of fun.