New and veteran real estate professionals gathered at FIU Business to discuss trending issues in one of the hottest markets in the U.S. – Miami.
REBar Camp, a one day think tank hosted by the Miami Young Professional Network (YPN) and FIU Business’s Hollo School of Real Estate, drew over 150 attendees to the August 3, 2023 event.
“FIU is committed 100% to the real estate community because you can't say Florida and not have real estate in the same sentence,” said William Hardin, dean of FIU Business.
During the morning welcome session, participants submitted topics for discussion and once high-interest themes were selected, the conversations started flowing, with one track dedicated to commercial real estate. Topics ranged from the use of AI to create listings, to landing multi-million-dollar sales in the luxury real estate market and commercial land deals.
“We bring our ideas, we bring specialty niches, and we share our success, and also what hasn’t worked because we learn from that,” said Katherine Arteta, YPN president of the Miami Association of Realtors. “It shows exactly what YPN is, the collaboration and the continuing enhancing of our profession.”
Top of mind was Miami’s shifting market status. Arteta noted that it was a buying frenzy two years ago, but recently buyers have cooled on overpaying for properties. The current number of sales is still above pre-pandemic numbers, she added.
Changes in the insurance industry are also having an impact, “so we're seeing a lot of issues and deals going south due to insurance problems,” said Chandra Etienne (MSIRE '13), former president of YPN, and a broker at Village Premier Collection.
Her advice to new agents: a shift in mindset.
“A lot of people are saying the market’s down; you need to speak to someone who's actually been in a down market. We need to shift our perspective,” said Etienne. “Real estate always moves. Even when there was a mortgage freeze in 2009, people still bought houses.”
Other attendees were excited to learn about developing marketing strategies, planning open houses and using customer relations management tools.
“I'm actually a new broker, I just opened my own brokerage, so I love being around other people in the same business and learning from each other,” said Nicole Desiderio (BBA '10) “Today I was most excited to learn about CRMs and other programs people are using to stay in touch with their clients.”