The Haute Residence live webinars series continued today with a power developers' panel. (See a full list of upcoming webinars and sign up to watch here).
Haute Living's Seth Semilof introduced Cheryl Casone, who joined FOX Business Network (FBN) as an anchor in September 2007 and currently serves as the co-anchor of FBN:AM, which airs weekdays at 5 AM/EST. Casone is also a financial contributor on FOX News Channel (FNC) where she provides economic reports. Casone served as the host of the dynamic dialogue that included questions submitted by viewers.
Semilof continued by welcoming the panelists for today's webinar:
- Louis Birdman, co-developer of One Thousand Museum by Zaha Hadid Architects. As Principal at BRD/Birdman Real Estate Development, has overseen the development of more than 18,000 residential units and 1,000 hotel keys valued at more than $5 billion.
- Edgardo Defortuna, Founder and CEO of Fortune International Group, who brings over 30 of experience in the real estate industry; a visionary and driving force in South Florida’s landscape.
- Jules Trump, developer of The Estates at Acqualina, the $1.8 billion ultra-luxury development in Sunny Isles Beach, FL.
- Michael Stern, Founder & CEO of JDS Development, an innovative real estate development, construction, and acquisition firm responsible for the creation of numerous residential, hospitality, and mixed-use projects in New York City and Miami.
Watch the full video below
Casone took over and engaged the panelists in an hour-long conversation that encompassed multiple real estate markets. They gave their thoughts on the best ways for real estate agents, brokers, developers, and the industry overall to deal with the effect that COVID-19 has had on business and the rest of the year.
"There have been many changes in the way we are all doing business," said Birdman. "Real estate is a face-to-face business, but that has changed with this outbreak. People still need to move, have leases coming up and other circumstances, so properties continue to get shown in different ways to ensure the safety of sellers, buyers and people working at properties."
Stern spoke on New York's state of real estate affairs since the Big Apple became the center of the Coronavirus pandemic in the US. "For New York, we closed our office three and a half weeks ago, completely working remotely except for construction," he said. Then, he continued to compare his company's activity in South Florida with New York. "In Miami, we have not seen much of a drop in manpower in construction. For the most part, we are doing construction in Florida and largely stopped in New York."
The construction of The Estates at Acqualina has continued while adapting to today's standards of social distancing and higher use of technology for marketing. "We are able to continue with the construction, but taking care of our workers," said Trump. He continued, "We are making great use of technology to share communications to tell the story of The Estates at Acqualina. We are in constant communication with our customers today, even more so than prior."
Casone asked Defortuna about the quick learning curve for the entire industry on how to conduct business from a distance. "Especially on the luxury side of the market, nobody needs to buy a second or third home," he said. "They buy it because they love it. From the marketing point of view, we have specialized in marketing to the entire world, providing tools to brokers to promote our projects in Latin America, Europe, and worldwide. Presentations of this type are happening all over the world. My brokers are saying they are busier now than before when they were doing presentations one-on-one."
Today's webinar followed on yesterday's session that featured Daniel de la Vega, President of ONE Sotheby's International Realty.
Top left: Edgardo Defortuna; top right: Jules Trump; bottom left Louis Birdman; bottom right, Michael Stern; center: Cheryl Casone
