Morris Massre is a Realtor with Prudential Florida Realty.
Too many realtors in South Florida today have their roots so firmly implanted in the South American ground that they fail to recognize what it is they are selling and how it came to be.
Any good salesperson has to have some knowledge of his or her product. That is what sets you apart from all the other wannabe Realtors and makes you all the more qualified to represent a client. After all, knowledge is power, and if you think that clients do not notice this you are sadly mistaken.
People listen and absorb, so the more you know about your own city the better off you will be. Nobody wants to buy a property from someone who has the mindset of, dare I say it, a car salesman, because what sets us apart from them is the fact that not only do we know what we are selling, but actually care about it and its history. A car’s history disappears once it leaves the lot and can only be reclaimed on a Carfax report. But the history of a city is who we are as a people and how far we have come since the days of prohibition and the civil rights movement.
Case in point is Carl Fisher, Miami Beach’s grand poobah. If Fisher were alive today he would have to pinch himself at the sheer magnitude of what Miami Beach has become. Why Fisher? This entrepreneur from Indiana might as well be called the founder of Miami Beach, even though he wasn’t the first to arrive.
His legacy, however, remains because he was the first to get people there, and better yet, invest. It was his vision, expertise, and money that led the way for others to make the city what it is today. Respect for this man reminds every inhabitant of Fisher Island, arguably the most expensive housing in the area.
It was Fisher, who built the original Dixie Highway that ran, from all places, Indiana to Miami Beach. It was also Fisher who funded the Collins bridge that linked Miami to Miami Beach, thus setting off a real estate maelstrom in the 1920s. At the time, buyers were coming from all directions to buy up property in South Florida.
But the bubble burst in 1925 and the hurricane of 1926 was the city’s coup de grace. Fisher went bust shortly thereafter during the depression. It took until after World War II for the city to make a comeback.
It started with the troops coming back from the war, then a large Jewish contingent from the Northeast followed, and finally an exploding Cuban population sprouted up during the boat lift. Fisher was, unfortunately, an open and ardent racist, as were most prior to WWII, and he even went so far as to not allow Jews to buy any of his properties. Other developers like the Lummus Brothers only allowed Jews to buy South of 5th Street in Miami Beach.
As a result of this, Jews actually prospered South of 5th, and eventually occupied 70 percent of Miami Beach before the boat lift. As a matter of fact, this law or rule forced a man named Joseph Weiss to open his restaurant in the designated area. Today you may know it as Joe’s Stone Crabs.
And now there are plans for an additional 26 new condos on the drawing board with no end in sight. If you think cranes are dotting the landscape now, you have not seen anything yet. So, the next time you meet up with a client perhaps your insight into how the city and its people came to be might just impress them and give you some leverage over your competition. Surely someone who knows so much about a city’s history will know a great deal more about its future?
Morris Massre is a Realtor in South Florida with Prudential Florida Realty. He can be reached at:
agentsunstate@gmail.com
www.myfloridarealty.net
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