Reinventing vacation home buying: Directimo's journey

Europe’s €70 billion vacation home market is booming. However, for international buyers, the process remains slow, fragmented, and opaque. That’s where Directimo, an AI-powered, buyer-first marketplace, steps in.

By combining verified listings, smart tech, and a trusted network of top local agents, Directimo is simplifying cross-border property investing. With strong early traction and big plans to scale, we sat down with Matei Maloș, serial proptech entrepreneur and CEO of Directimo, to discuss the platform’s mission, early wins, and where it’s headed next.

1. You’re a serial entrepreneur in proptech. What inspired you to launch Directimo, and why focus exclusively on buyers?

It started back in 2006 with a simple idea: if buyers had direct access to property owners, they wouldn’t need agents. At the time, especially in Eastern Europe, most real estate agents simply duplicated property listings in newspapers or online and acted as basic intermediaries.

Our first platform, magazinuldecase.ro, quickly became a top challenger in Romania, attracting over 150,000 users. But I soon realized the real need wasn’t to eliminate commission, it was to help buyers access the full market, easily and transparently, so they could find the best deal.

That insight led to homefinders.ro - a buyer-agent service combining a structured property database with a team of professionals representing the buyer. In many ways, it was the precursor to Directimo.

After several iterations and pivots, and lessons learned from the Romanian market’s limitations, we identified vacation home buying as the most scalable niche for European expansion. Buyers are often international, agents are open to collaboration, and listings are usually non-exclusive, allowing us to represent the buyer’s interests more effectively.

2. What are the biggest pain points for vacation home buyers in Europe today? How is Directimo solving them?

The process can take 6–9 months, even longer for international buyers. Unlike the U.S., where centralized databases (MLS) streamline everything, Europe is fragmented: listings are often incomplete, outdated, or duplicated multiple times.

Key problems we address:

• Lack of buyer representation: Less than 5% of European buyers use dedicated agents (vs. 60% in the U.S.). We’ve built a network of buyer agents specialized in working with international clients, at 0% commission for the buyer.

• Cross-border complexity: Legal, fiscal, and financing rules vary greatly. We offer integrated services (legal, tax, financing), and our agents are experienced locals or international relocators from countries like the UK, Sweden, Germany, and Romania.

• Lack of neighborhood insight: Most buyers don’t know the micro-zones. Our Area Discovery Tool covers 154 regions in Costa del Sol, with detailed profiles, pros/cons, and buyer personas.

• Time-wasting viewings: our AI tools pre-qualify buyers and match them to suitable listings based on preferences and readiness to buy.

• Pricing opacity: prices vary widely, even on the same street. We bring full transparency with address-level market analysis and comparisons.
  

3. How do your AI tools and local agents work together to verify listings and guide buyers?

We currently use two main AI agents:

1. Pre-qualification AI (text & voice) – It filters buyers based on criteria like budget, timeline, and property type, routing them to a human agent or keeping them in our nurturing flow until they’re ready.

2. Area Discovery Tool (launching July 20) – It allows buyers to filter 154 Costa del Sol zones by property type, budget, lifestyle filters (schools, beaches, walkability, entertainment, etc.), and match them with areas that fit their needs.

We also deliver personalized educational content, tailored by buyer type, whether they’re retirees, relocators, second-home seekers, or investors, with legal, tax, and lifestyle guidance built-in.

4. You’ve seen strong traction in Costa del Sol, with €13.6M in transactions. What drove this success, and how will you expand to new markets?

We’ve had solid traction considering we bootstrapped a beta product with around €300,000 in pre-seed funding. Costa del Sol is a €10B+ market, so we’re still just scratching the surface.

Next, we’re expanding step-by-step using a proven playbook in markets like Lisbon, Algarve, Madeira, the Canary and Balearic Islands, and selected mountain and seaside destinations in Romania. We also tested Dubai but decided not to pursue it for now.

5. What’s your process for selecting and onboarding top local agents and service providers?

Initially, we spoke to over 200 agents and dozens of lawyers, accountants, and mortgage brokers in Costa del Sol.

Now, we’ve automated much of the training and onboarding. Selection is based on ethical standards, deep local market knowledge, transaction track record, and client service quality.

6. What kinds of analytics and tools does Directimo offer to help buyers make informed decisions?

In addition to our Area Discovery Tool, the first of its kind in Europe, we provide:

• Yield calculators and tax estimators

• Legal process guides, available in over 10 European languages

• Lifestyle mapping tools to ensure a match between neighborhood and buyer needs

Photos alone aren’t enough, understanding what’s around the property is just as critical.

7. Looking ahead, where do you see Directimo in five years, and how will technology shape the future of international real estate?

In five years, we want Directimo to be the go-to platform for vacation home buying in Europe: the first and last stop for property research and transactions.

We aim to reduce the property acquisition timeline from 6–9 months to just 30–45 days, similar to the U.S. experience. Long-term, we see Directimo becoming the leading residential transaction platform in Europe.

8. Why is now a good time for investors to support Directimo’s journey?

We’ve validated the platform, built a lean acquisition model, and are transforming the way homes are bought in Europe, starting with vacation properties.

AI is accelerating everything. What once cost €2M to structure a single region (like Île-de-France) now can be done for less than €500K. We’re ready to scale, faster and more efficiently than ever before.

Explore the opportunity.