The numbers cruncher behind today’s De Vos Report by Zilbert International Realty was doing the same thing for Douglas Elliman before jumping ship earlier this month.
Arno de Vos, 36, joined Miami Beach-based Zilbert after about a year and a half as a broker with Elliman, where he started publishing the monthly De Vos Report, which analyzes sales activity in Miami Beach’s $500,000-plus market, in March 2012.
The native South African left his hometown of Port Elizabeth by way of a gig with the cruise industry in the 1990s. His job: giving on-ship presentations advising travelers where to shop for diamonds and other luxury goods at Caribbean ports of call for Miami Beach-based Onboard Media. He latterly worked at a competitor’s corporate office, analyzing revenue management and finance for the firm.
“I parlayed that into real estate when I realized there was a definite need for relevant, credible, decisions-driving data,” de Vos told The Real Deal.
“When you’re lumping a one-bedroom, midcentury apartment with a beautiful, 5,000-square-foot penthouse, it’s not really apples to apples,” he added. De Vos looks at single-family homes and condos in Miami Beach’s richest four zip codes where fewer than 1,000 residential properties transact annually.
“The guy lives, breathes and sleeps numbers,” Mark Zilbert, founder and chief of Zilbert International, told TRD of his new hire.
De Vos, who studied photography in South Africa, splits his time between Brickell and Palm Beach.