Edgardo Defortuna, Fortune International founder, sees bright future ahead after Christie’s partnership | Real Estate Agents
In a recent chat with Islander News, Edgardo Defortuna – the founder, president and CEO of Fortune International Realty – revealed his personal story about being an immigrant in Miami who founded and built an incredible real estate company with more than 600 agents. Fortune just announced a partnership with Christie’s International Real Estate.
Versión en Español
Defortuna was born in the city of Buenos Aires. At the age of 3, his family moved to Córdoba and there he spent his childhood. At the age of 23, a three-month trip to the United States radically changed his life.
“I had just graduated in engineering and my sister had just graduated in medicine and wanted to do a specialization in Miami,” he recalled. “She asked me if I could accompany her for three months so she wouldn’t come alone. And, as I always say, three months passed … and they are still waiting for me to come back.”
IN. What were those early years like when you started to see what this city is all about?
EDF. I fell in love with the lifestyle of the city and how different it was from Argentina, where there was personal, economic and legal insecurity. But then the only way to stay was to have a visa as a student. I enrolled in the University of Miami to do an MBA.
At that time, I started helping people who had properties in Miami to manage them while they were in their countries. I was quickly able to build a client portfolio of people who needed that service. I realized that the brokers at that time sold to Latin American buyers, but they did not specialize in them. I decided to focus on that market.
Then we decided to go to Latin America and make alliances with brokers from the most important cities, such as São Paulo, Rio, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and others. In the years 1983/1984 I started alone. Then my brother Walter and my sister Monica joined me a few years later.
IN. How did Fortune come about? Do they choose the name by your family name?
EDF. At first, I specialized in units in the Brickell Place complex, and we opened an office there. Then we bought several real estate companies and realized that we needed to unify them into one. When we named the company, we decided to Americanize the surname Defortuna, and we put Fortune, which is a very nice word.
IN. Has specializing in Latin America subjected the company to many ups and downs due to the constant changes in the economies there? Has that forced you to look for other markets as well?
EDF. You have to always be prepared for the ups and downs, see what is happening, and try to anticipate what is going to happen. The changes in the value of the dollar and the relationship with the Euro have also led us to make the same type of alliances with very important companies in Europe that we did in Latin America. In Latin America, it doesn’t always happen all at the same time. The situations in the countries are changing, and we have concentrated our efforts where it was always best.
In the last 5 years, the US market has grown tremendously, to the point that today it is the largest of all. Migration from New York, Connecticut, Chicago, California has been very important.
What makes us very different from other development companies is that we have a great source of information in a great team of salespeople, who are telling us not only what the client wants, but also what the market is asking for. You fall in love with something, but if you don’t validate it with the market, maybe you’re wrong. Having an integration between sales and development has been very important to us, and it gives us a very unique position in the South Florida real estate market.
IN. In 2023 you celebrate 40 years with the company, and you are now about to begin a new stage with this alliance with Christie’s. How do you see the development that Fortune has achieved? Could you imagine it?
EDF. When I announced the alliance with Christie’s a few days ago to the sellers, I told them that if someone had told me when I was about to leave Cordoba that in 40 years I would be announcing this to so many people, I would have said that not even the craziest could think of a thing like this.
It was a great combination of a spectacular city, excellent timing, a vision, and a strategic plan, which in combination with the passion that one puts into things … These achievements are made. And it is a great testimony that, if luck is on your side, when you put effort and passion into what you do, things can have a great result.
This great result is also seen in this alliance with Christie’s.
IN. Where is Fortune going now from this agreement?
EDF. One of my most important tasks as the leader of the company is to try to anticipate what is coming and provide our team with the necessary skills to succeed in the best possible way. And I am not convinced that they gave us something other than what we already had. But the industry is evolving at a very fast speed, and today the value of relationships and the network is more important than ever. Having a company like Christie’s as an ally gives sales agents a very important tool, which is to have a counterpart in the most important cities in the United States and the world to promote their properties and be able to exchange clients and services.
If you combine the technological tools that Christie’s has gotten since its real estate branch was acquired by the Chicago company @Properties, with a very prestigious name like Christie’s, and our prestige and reputation as the company that really knows South Florida, then you have a very powerful weapon to continue to compete very favorably in this market. We continue in conversations with them to evolve in other areas, such as marketing and project development.
It is the beginning of an alliance that is going to expand to other areas. There are many things to do and we are very excited to continue growing in that relationship and in everything we can do to offer better services.
