ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT
From Ship to Shore to Entrepreneur After graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in 2005, Mike Maher ’12 MBA served as a naval surface warfare officer during three overseas deployments in four years. He then moved to Philadelphia and as he began to transition from the Navy, Maher was looking for an MBA program that would allow him to pursue his interests in real estate, finance and investing. The Daniel M. DiLella Center for Real Estate and the Center City Philadelphia location of the Villanova MBA program were a perfect fit for Maher and he earned his MBA in Real Estate, Finance and International Business in 2012.
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The Villanova MBA program and the DiLella Center for Real Estate provided the academic rigor in real estate and investing and the financial acumen I needed to launch a startup business.” – Mike Maher ’12 MBA
Maher’s interest in real estate began in college when he began to buy and sell investment properties. “I wanted the opportunity to further understand the dynamics behind real estate. I knew it was a pervasive asset class with long-term potential,” explains Maher. While working on his MBA, Maher developed a business model of shared workspaces for mobile professionals. He received support from his professors who allowed him to use and test his idea for class assignments. “I was able to gain educational insights and learn best practices in real time,” said Maher.
A Different Deployment After completing his MBA, Maher and his wife Jennifer ’07 JD created Benjamin’s Desk, a Philadelphia-based network of shared workspaces. Their original model was to target mobile professionals such as accountants and small business owners working in the Rittenhouse Square area of Philadelphia. They quickly expanded their model in response to the market demand for shared workspaces for startups, entrepreneurs and tech firms. In 2015 Maher founded Houwzer, a startup residential real estate brokerage. Maher had experienced firsthand the challenges of high fees with buying and selling property. He understood that although the internet had allowed real estate transactions to become much more efficient, the fee structure had generally not changed. In the Houwzer model homeowners pay a flat fee plus 2.5% to the buyer’s agent. In addition, Houwzer agents are salaried employees, which allows them to focus on servicing the client and not on commission. The company has generated $1B in sales revenue since inception and has saved its clients over $15 million in fees.
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