MSM business PATRICIA DELINOIS MIAMI’S LUXURY REAL ESTATE MESSIAH W ith a long-standing list of accomplishments and her sultry, chocolate locks, real estate tycoon, Patricia Delinois, President & CEO of Century 21 Premier Elite Reality, makes sure to get what she wants – and visibly deserves. This Luxury Real Estate Messiah and NBCUniversal Style Network star, staked her claim to fame long before Andy Cohen and pernicious catfights. For the award winning broker, seamlessly globalizing the 305’s real-estate market, while helming 175 agents deemed a lucrative cakewalk to the philanthropic enthusiast. Although a fluent speaker in three languages – French, Spanish, and English – the property powerhouse fancies one language in particular – selling; she fills us in on her landholdings hypnosis that has foreign affairs and local buyers alike, buzzing. MSM: Did the credit crisis of 2008 have a significant impact on your business and ability to sell homes? In 2008 we had over 46,000 properties available for sale on the market. Clients were asking for rentals, rentals, rentals!! Prices kept dropping and real estate offices were closing. Banks were not lending, mortgage brokers were all closing their companies. It was a very sad, difficult time and a tough process to get anything sold! 56 MSM Miami Shoot Magazine Business PHOTOS COURTESY OF Geraldine Pavan MSM: What makes Century 21 Premier Elite Realty successful? At the end of 2011 we noticed that sales were up 4 percent from 2005 which was the boom year. A shift was beginning. This shift we were experiencing was due to the foreign buyer. Miami was suddenly on everyone’s radar. The Wall Street Journal named us the “new global city” 62 percent of the buyers now buying in Miami are foreign buyers and 90 percent of those buyers are buying cash. What makes our company different is we are an international company. We focus on foreign clients from all over the world. 48 percent of the business done by Century 21 is outside of the US. We are the most recognized real estate brand in the world. We also are the only real estate company to have an inter-office MLS, providing access for all of our agents and clients to listings from all of our offices around the world through our global MLS website Century21global.com. MSM: Describe your average client profile in the Miami market. Are they in the market to invest or to live in the property? The average Miami buyer is either from one of the large northern cities like New York, Chicago, Boston and Washington DC or they come from other countries in Europe, Asia and South America. We currently have a lot of traffic from Brazil, Argentina,