Pieter van Santvoort of Van Santvoort Real estate agents:
Pieter van Santvoort was in the profession for 25 years on January 1st last. Of those, he worked for 20 years in the family business: Santvoort real estate agency in Eindhoven. He started his career at Meeùs, where he learned the first tricks of the trade. He did not want to go straight into the family business. ‘Then you are seen as the boss's son. And if there was one thing I didn't want, it was that.’ In 2006 he took over the real estate agency from his father, together with his cousin Dirk. They decided to continue the company in an innovative and entirely unique way.
The start of Pieter's career
First steps in real estate
Pieter initially did not want to become a real estate agent at all. ‘I have always played a lot of sports and am very interested in sports. Especially in my younger years, I kept track of everything. I knew everything about every sport: who was good, who wasn't, who was the champion.’ He also wanted to study Sports Economics, but he was not selected. He always pushed against real estate, but secretly he found it fun and interesting. Therefore, he decided to study Real Estate and Real Estate Agency. ‘I always said: I'm not going to do it like my father.’ And this will later be evident in the way he now runs the family business.
‘Nobody wanted to train the competitor's son’
After graduating, he did not want to immediately join the family business because many of the employees already knew him from when he was a little boy. Pieter wanted to gain experience elsewhere first and not come in as ‘the boss's son’. But with his last name in the region, it was very difficult to find a job. After all, no one wanted to train ‘the competitor's son’. Eventually, it was his father who arranged a job interview for him at Meeùs in Den Bosch. ‘My father's network did come in handy after all.’
‘I had a fantastic time and still keep in touch with many of them. I even met my wife there!’
One of the factors that earned him the job at Meeùs was the promise that he would work there for five years. And he did. ‘I was eventually signing off on a valuation report while my colleagues downstairs were already drinking beer to celebrate my departure,’ Pieter says laughing. ‘No joke,’ he continues. ‘I had a fantastic time and still keep in touch with many of them. I even met my wife there!’
The move to the family business
‘I felt it was time to leave when Meeùs was taken over. You saw the soul leave the family business. And you noticed that insurance became much more important than real estate.’ The residential real estate agency was eventually turned into Hypodomus; they wanted to continue Meeùs' formula in a real estate chain. ‘I never believed in that. Everything in the Netherlands is so local that it's just not feasible. Things are just very different in Amersfoort than they are in Eindhoven.’ You must know the dynamics and challenges of the city in which you operate.
He joined the family business, which was then still run by his father. And there, the father's will was law. Pieter always said to his father: ‘You were like a queen bee in a hive. You were at the top of the pecking order and had all the bees working for you. And they did exactly what you wanted.’ There were people who also wanted to take the lead, but ultimately his father determined everything. His father worked a lot and kept a close eye on everything. ‘My father would get in the car in the morning and come home in the evening. Then he had visited all the branches at least once. In between, he kept his appointments.’ He assigned tasks to the employees and checked almost every file. Even on weekends, because he always wanted to maintain oversight.
‘I just joined as an employee, but I was stubborn’
Pieter quickly saw: this must and can be done differently. It can be simpler and more efficient. ‘For example, nothing was digitized. Photos were taken analogously. Then they were scanned to digitize them.’ Pieter came from a company where every real estate agent had a mobile phone and also saw the benefit of emailing from every workstation. ‘I just joined as an employee, but I was stubborn. So I told my father: we have to do things differently.’
Even though his father preferred to keep everything as it was, Pieter did not give up. ‘I arranged a few cameras for the office, and all the employees were thrilled. They themselves had already indicated several times that things could be done differently. Within two weeks, my father also saw the benefit of the camera; photos no longer failed, and the costs for the photographer were eliminated. That was somewhat the beginning of the change within the company.’
The takeover by the new generation
The takeover of the family business
When Pieter had worked in the family business for a while, he decided to write a plan and develop their vision for the future of the office. ‘I was going crazy running into the same issues repeatedly.’
‘Call the staff together and present your plan’’
‘I put the plan on my father's desk on Friday and withdrew for the entire weekend. When I came to the office on Monday, my father had read the plan. He said: Call the staff together and present your plan. If they think it should happen, then we will do it. And so it happened.’ An important part of the plan was that his father, then 60 years old, had to stop; otherwise, he would not be able to let the 60-year-old owner relinquish control.
On January 1, 2006, they took over from their fathers, exactly 30 years after the company was founded.
The changes happened quickly
A lot changed when they took over the real estate agency. ‘The biggest difference was our way of thinking and our way of working. I always told my father: how you built everything is incredibly clever, but it is not the company as I see it. It is not how I see the future. I didn't want to work seven days a week. I work hard and with great pleasure, but on Saturdays, I do nothing. I am there for my family and want to do fun things.’
An important change was becoming active on Funda. The housing site became increasingly important, and people wanted to sell their homes through that platform. ‘We had to become a member of NVM for that. Our parents were involved in architecture and project development alongside real estate, in combination with relationships. That was not allowed according to NVM rules.’
‘You can't flout labor conditions’
Another important development was that everyone was made responsible for their own files. ‘Only then can you grow. The organization must be independent, operate independently.’ There was also more attention to labor conditions. ‘You can't flout labor conditions. Someone who works 40 hours, works 40 hours. Not 140 hours.
Pioneering in the field of digitization
We started digitizing a lot within Santvoort real estate agency at that time. An ERP system was introduced, job descriptions were made, and digital agendas were introduced. This allowed secretaries to schedule appointments. At first, the real estate agents did all that themselves. It saved a lot of time.
‘We only touch something once’
The two cousins developed their own working method, always taking as a starting point: ‘We only touch something once.’ If someone called who wanted to sell their house or schedule a viewing, they were helped directly. ‘No intermediary comes in between, because then you lose 50% of your efficiency.’
They continued this efficient working method at a rapid pace. ‘We had a system built that linked our exchange to our website and Funda: via XML connection at the time. We were the first to do that in the Netherlands.’ Eventually, we also helped intensively with the development of Realworks. ‘At one point, our people here knew better how Realworks worked than the people from Realworks themselves.’
The division of tasks between Pieter and his partner
Gradually, Pieter and Dirk discovered more and more what they enjoyed doing. Pieter finds new construction and development interesting; the existing market has never really interested him. ‘I do find the existing market fascinating, but only if it's an entire street at once. That's also why I rarely take a house for sale. I always bring a real estate agent with me. I'm busy with so many other things that the client otherwise doesn't get the attention they deserve. All the real estate agents walking around here are better real estate agents in the existing construction than I am myself.’
Dirk is more active in agricultural real estate. It is no coincidence that he ended up in this specialty. ‘His passion and his life are his horses. He has, therefore, made his hobby his work,’ says Pieter. ‘He knows everyone in the horse world, nationally and internationally.’
‘The nice thing is that we do not compete with each other in any way’
In terms of character, they are both very different. Pieter is competitive, business-minded, and quickly bored. He is a true salesman. Dirk is much calmer and is responsible for purchasing. ‘We are a great combination. The nice thing is that we do not compete with each other in any way. What he likes, I do not like. And what I like, he does not like. But we do have the same vision. And that vision has taken us far together.’ Pieter says: ‘With us, everything has always been driven by entrepreneurship. We always look for how we can do something smarter, more efficiently, and better. We enjoy building something.’ And for that, it is often necessary to start with a blank canvas.
The housing market according to Pieter
Social involvement
Pieter regularly writes opinion pieces in the Eindhoven newspaper. When asked if he is asked for this, he jokingly says: ‘I am not asked for that, I just do it.’ He finds it hard to agree with the political reality. He says: ‘Politics have been making the wrong choices for at least ten years and continue to do so. You can say: We are going to build a million houses, but that's not going to happen.’
‘I have yet to meet the first project developer who knows he will make a ten million loss and still starts building’
According to him, it has been a mess in Eindhoven for ten years. A mess that is maintained by politics. ‘There has never been listening to and talking with market parties. I have yet to meet the first project developer who knows he will make a ten million loss and still starts building. That person does not exist. It is also not realistic to think he should do it from a social perspective. Absurd.’
Why ‘housing’ is currently going wrong
Based on the Housing Construction Task agreed with the ministry (in Ollongren's time in 2019), 3,000 houses must be built per year, just in the city of Eindhoven alone. Pieter says: ‘We are currently doing an average of 1500 to 1600 per year. That programming from back then has been included in a Housing Vision. No account was taken of the growth of the Eindhoven business sector. In five years, Eindhoven will be the number one economy in the Netherlands. Just in the chain of a company like ASML alone, at least 70,000 extra jobs will be created in the next five to eight years. Those people have to live somewhere. So you see they have to choose an ever-wider circle around the city to live in. The traffic gets completely stuck. And if it rains or there's an accident, then there's just no getting through here.’
‘Not the interest rate has locked the housing market, but the minister has’
Pieter says it's not that contact is not sought with politics, but that politics does not want to listen. ‘The minister does too little with insights from the market because there is a coalition agreement that must be implemented. Not the interest rate has locked the housing market, but the minister has. The construction cannot be suddenly changed from today. It is a process of many years. Development takes an average of seven years. Suppose: you are in the fourth or fifth year and have already spent God-knows-how-much money, made plans, started development, and adjusted parking standards. And then the minister comes with the story that he wants to do it differently, but doesn't know exactly how yet. He will use 2022 and 2023 for that and will come with the redeeming answer somewhere in 2024. That obviously won't work.
What you do then is lock the market. Because the investor does not know what he can pay for a product, because he does not know your plans. And the developer cannot proceed with his development because he does not know if he is making the right product.’ After the housing market was locked, the war in Ukraine, interest rate increases, and material shortages also came on top of it.
‘The new coalition talks with the market instead of about the market’
However, Pieter has cautious hope for the future. In Eindhoven, there is now a coalition that he gives the benefit of the doubt. He notices that there is a will to do things differently because they see that the current policy is not working. ‘The new coalition talks with the market instead of about the market.’ They also really bring market parties to the table and ask questions. He is still very skeptical about minister De Jonge. ‘The coming time will make it clear whether he listens and whether he realizes that things need to change. What is now seeping through from the consultations seems good. He links the performance agreement of the municipality with the market. They must consult, and I see that positively.’
Anticipating the future
The real estate agency has grown significantly in recent years. They have gone from fifteen to fifty staff. Many young, enthusiastic people have joined. ‘They have never really experienced setbacks in that time.’ But Pieter sees comparisons with 2008. ‘Back then, there were also price increases and outbidding, although they were not as extreme as in recent years and the years before that. But you know that this cannot continue indefinitely.’
‘I know from 2008 that you always have to make a high-low-mid analysis’
He prepares his employees for this development. ‘I know from 2008 that you always have to make a high-low-mid analysis. So we always do that.’ This way, the office prepares for a changing market, or in other words, the moment that ‘transactions no longer happen automatically’ and ‘sales talks do not automatically come in tenfold.’ Because they saw the developments coming, the housing crisis is not a crisis for Santvoort real estate agency at the moment.
‘You are now a real estate agent again instead of a process manager’
People had to be trained to prepare for the new situation. ‘Organizing the process is very different from selling. You are now a real estate agent again instead of a process manager.’ In addition, Santvoort real estate agency has focused on email automation and analyzing their own performance based on data. ‘Something that 99 out of 100 real estate agents now still has to start with.’
Pieter indicates that the office works much more efficiently than two years ago. He sees the number of appointments decreasing, but the return on the appointments increasing. ‘There are now still enough appointments. But if you follow the curve of the past five months, you see it going down.’ So there will come a time when that will change. Due to the economic headwind, the company may grow less next year, but Pieter is convinced that they ‘will still do well next year.’
Growing in width
When asked where he sees his company in seven years, Pieter reacts calmly. ‘I have no idea where we will be in seven years. I think we will steadily continue as we have been doing for forty-seven years.’ According to him, the growth is not in the real estate agency, but in breadth. In other words: in services (mortgages, insurance, management, rental, and management). ‘Bigger is not a goal. Better is the goal. I do not dream of becoming the biggest company in the Netherlands. But I just want to be very good, have very fun work. Growth is a consequence of that.’
‘There are people there who have run companies with 50,000 employees. They press on your pain points within five minutes’
He keeps a close eye on competitors. But he learns mainly from people outside the real estate business. He is part of an entrepreneurs' club, where he invests a lot of energy. ‘You learn especially from people who look at your business in a different way. There are people there who have run companies with 50,000 employees. They press on your pain points within five minutes. Very confronting, but also very enlightening. You learn the most from that.’
When he notices that he no longer has enough energy for the fast pace in the real estate business, he will stop. ‘You have to do it with a lot of dedication and energy. If you no longer have that willingness, then you need to take a step back and make someone else responsible.’ That moment has certainly not yet arrived.
‘I would find it funny if a plan ended up on my desk at some point’
He does find it important to give the young people in the company space to build their own relationships. ‘I am now almost 50. Maybe I'll be 60 soon, and they will say here that it's time to go. I have a different view of life than my father, so I don't think so. But I would find it funny if a plan ended up on my desk at some point.’
This interview is part of an interview series with the key players in real estate and the housing market. A new interview appears every month. Tips on who we should interview next? Email us at info@mijnverkoopmakelaar.nl
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