The news fell, as brutal as a heart attack: Laurent Vimont, 61, president of the Century 21 real estate network died on the morning of March 11. If this respected professional was not necessarily known to the general public, he was a celebrity in his milieu. He also often liked to tease brokers or agents when they were wrong or announced forecasts that they considered fanciful. Neat costume, hair pulled back, hidalgo look and crooner’s voice, he was a character. And if he was appreciated for his managerial qualities within his network, in the media, he was what is called a “good client”.
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Always the meaning of the formula and the word for laughs. Without forgetting the sense of self-mockery for this autodidact who liked to describe himself as a “Bac-2”. A sportsman too since he began his career in the early 80s as a lifeguard alongside a certain Philippe Lucas at the Melun swimming pool. But the appeal of real estate was strongest from 1984, and it began in an agency in Melun in 1984, which was to welcome the first Century 21 agency in France in 1987. Its destiny will remain linked to this brand which passes into the bosom of Nexity in 2006. The takeover of the network in May 2021 by the Arche group of entrepreneur and politician Philippe Briand does not change anything. It is still Laurent Vimont who leads the boat of this group, which now has 925 agencies and 7,500 professionals.
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Real estate? One “gold bar»
When we asked him to react to tweets mocking the exaggerated language of real estate agents, Laurent Vimont reacted with humor. “There is often a part of exaggeration but there is a kernel of truthacknowledged the former president of Century 21. The real estate agent tends to embellish the photos and go overboard with the description of the properties for sale“. To an article in Ouest-France titled “PE classes were hell on earth ”: they have bad memories“, Laurent Vimont had tweeted: “The only courses where I had good grades“. To which we added:Especially when it came to swimming“. And he simply retorts:All the sports“.
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Knight of the Legion of Honor and the National Order of Merit, Laurent Vimont also had good formulas to describe the situation of the real estate market. And then, at the very beginning of the health crisis, when each expert went there with his forecast on the evolution of prices, Laurent Vimont simply knew how to answer: “I did not know“. He also liked to repeat that real estate was a “gold bar“.
President of Century 21 since 2009, Laurent Vimont died of a heart attack this Friday, March 11, at the age of 61. Century 21’s communications director pays tribute to a man who was “more than a president” and that “gave off an energy that pulled us all up“.
The other reactions, from all sides, are linked on Twitter, a social network where Laurent Vimont liked to give his opinion on all subjects: sport, politics or television. The Minister in charge of Housing Emmanuelle Wargon welcomes a “great professional, very respected, with whom I have always maintained a relationship of trust and high quality cooperation“.
His predecessor Julien Denormandie salutes a “man of values and convictions who will be greatly missed“.
Laurence Parisot, former president of Medef, pays tribute to a “great business leader, brilliant and generous“.
Nikos Aliagas regrets “sad news as unreal as it is painful”.
Ian Brossat, assistant to Anne Hidalgo, in charge of Housing, “will long remember our sometimes rough, always exciting exchanges“.
Several real estate professionals also reacted to the death of Laurent Vimont:
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