Interview: New Immowelt Boss Theo Mseka On Challenges And Plans For The German Market

AVIV Group runs some of Europe's most important real estate marketplaces. Along with SeLoger in France and Immoweb in Belgium, the former Axel Springer offshoot also operates immowelt, considered a challenger to ImmoScout24 in its native Germany.

AVIV recently appointed portal veteran Theo Mseka to lead its German portal. We caught up with Theo (pictured below), who has previously worked for Property24, Hepsiemlak and Private Property, to get the low down on his latest challenge...

Congratulations on the new job, Theo. What attracted you to immowelt, and what attracted AVIV Group to you?

Germany is the largest and one of the most dynamic real estate markets in Europe. immowelt has a strong brand, a solid foundation, and significant potential to grow further. That combination of scale, maturity and opportunity is what attracted me to the role.

As for the match with AVIV, it felt natural from the beginning, with combining my experience in building and scaling marketplaces as well as AVIV’s reach covering Germany, Austria, France and Belgium, this is a unique opportunity to be part of something special and to have a positive impact on 100s of millions of lives across Europe.

In your new role, you’ll be a direct competitor of fellow South African portal veteran and fellow former Private Property boss, Simon Bray, at Kleinanzeigen. Will you be catching up over a bottle of Pinotage, or is that strictly off limits now that you’re competitors?

Well, it's a coincidence that Simon and I ended up in the same market. We have competed before in South Africa and have both been CEO of Private Property, so we have a mutual respect and have known each other for a very long time. It will be great to shadow box with him and I am sure we will certainly share a bottle of Pinotage at some point, as we both love a good red wine, but that will come from a social aspect and will certainly exclude any “shop talk”.

Any regrets on leaving Private Property? Any unfinished business?

I have handed over a well-functioning business with a strong team in place. In a fast-moving market, there is always more to do, but the organisation is in very capable hands and has strong leaders who will execute against the long-term planning we put in place. I have no doubt they will continue to grow and succeed in their mission within the South African market. I’ll continue following Private Property’s successes from the outside and routing them on from halfway across the globe.

How big is the opportunity for AVIV Group in Germany, and how far does the ambition go?

Germany represents a significant opportunity for AVIV. It is the largest real estate market in Europe, with substantial transaction volume and a high level of digital maturity. For us, that combination translates into strong potential for growth and impact.

Our mandate is clear: to grow our relevance and our market share. Germany is a large, highly mature market, and there is a real opportunity for a challenger with strong fundamentals to succeed in this market. For immowelt, that means continually improving our products and services, accelerating innovation and putting user needs at the centre of every decision. We’re committed to our mission and have all the tools we need to get us there - we are focused and running towards our goals.

We recently saw AVIV Group row back on its plans for a fully integrated platform for all its European portals. You’ve built portals across many geographies on the same platform before. Are there any plans to try again or to at least integrate portals across borders a bit more?

AVIV has strengthened the autonomy of its local businesses, which has made them more agile and more effective in areas such as marketing and sales. At the same time, we continue to operate group-level functions where they create clear advantages. Depending on the task, we will use the approach that delivers the best outcome, sometimes local and sometimes cross-group. The guiding principle is always to deliver quickly and get solutions and services out that meet the needs of our customers and add greater value to the consumer.

I have personally worked within marketplaces run on multi-country platforms before and have seen the advantages gained through efficiency and scale of the platform. I am, however, convinced by the localisation strategy as that gives each AVIV business the opportunity to run at their own pace and focus on the areas they need to most. For Germany, we have a long road ahead of us, but we have everything we need to get where we need to be quickly.

Immowelt hasn’t had its own proper CEO since 2022. Has it perhaps been neglected a bit in that time with the company's focus on France?

I’m joining a strong organisation with a highly committed team, and I’m excited about the opportunity ahead. We have the full support of the AVIV Group to accelerate our next phase of growth.

Are there any plans to monetise end users like Scout24 has done so successfully?

We continuously review our products and services and explore new business opportunities. We closely observe what works in the market and where real value can be created. Our focus is on growing our relevance and our market share, and we will pursue models that support that objective.

Immowelt runs a traditional subscription model on the buy side alongside a pay-per-lead / commission share model on the vendor lead side. How important is the seller lead part of the business, and can you see German portals moving to a more ROI-based model on the buy side in the future?

The subscription model remains the core model in the German market today, and that is true for immowelt as well. That said, we’ll continuously evolve our products and services and will adopt

additional models when they create clear value for our customers. With the technological shifts ahead, especially in AI and automation, the industry will likely see meaningful changes over the coming years and business models will evolve with it.

Immowelt has closed three deals in adjacent services in 2025 (Kaufpreis-Aufteilung.com, nutzungsdauer.com and BauDarlehen24). What’s the grand vision for incorporating these assets and what the platform can become with these adjacent services?

At immowelt, we are building an ecosystem. The recent acquisitions are important building blocks for the ecosystem we are building, and more steps may follow in the near future. The vision is to create a true one-stop experience that supports all user needs around property transactions. Users can access the full suite or simply pick the services they need, whatever creates the most value and convenience for them.

Your rival launched an AI assistant recently. I’ve not seen any kind of similar feature on any AVIV Group portal so far. Is it a wait-and-see brief for now?

We offer AI-powered features, including a tool for creating high-quality property descriptions. And we are working on a range of additional capabilities. AI will have a major impact on real estate marketplaces in general, just as it will across most other industries, and we are preparing for that shift.