Selling (North) American: brokers redouble efforts to tap markets closer to home

From the March issue: In early February, Fortune International Group founder and CEO Edgardo DeFortuna and Chateau Group principal Manuel Grosskopf jetted to Toronto, where they met with Canadian real estate brokers and interested buyers inside the city’s Ritz-Carlton hotel. While giving their audience a briefing on the state of the Miami real estate market, DeFortuna and Grosskopf pitched the Ritz-Carlton Residences in Sunny Isles Beach, one of two high-end condo projects their companies are co-building in the northern Miami-Dade oceanside enclave.

“Right now, the Canadian buyer, especially in Toronto, finds Miami very attractive,” DeFortuna told The Real Deal. “We met with people who are followers of the Ritz-Carlton brand and are really interested in acquiring properties in Miami. One of the Toronto brokers aligned with us has purchased a unit himself, giving a lot of credibility to the project and the Miami market.”

Over the last 12 months, as buyers from Latin American countries remain on the sidelines due to plummeting exchange rates, Miami realtors and developers of luxury condos have sought to lure more buyers from Canada and the Northeastern U.S. Historically, such buyers typically gravitate north of the Miami-Dade county line, where prices for homes near or on the water are less expensive. [more]