Real Estate Broker and CEO
Residence Realty, Inc.
Managing a luxury retail store left Paola M. Garcia-Carrillo longing to spend more time with her family. “My husband is a real estate developer, so I took over the real estate sales for his properties,” says Garcia-Carrillo, broker and CEO of Residence Realty, Inc. “Everyone is in sales; you have to have customer service skills and knowledge of your product and the market. But keep in mind that, in real estate, you’re in the business of marketing.”
Since then, Garcia-Carrillo has earned the designations of Certified Luxury Home Marketing Specialist, Certified International Property Specialist and Pricing Specialist Advisor. As a broker, she feels most accomplished when her agents succeed. “It’s my duty to ensure that they are trained and have the tools and resources they need,” she says. “Just this month we had one agent sell a new construction residence in 38 days for $2.4 million.”
In 2018, Garcia-Carrillo’s team was named Florida’s Best Real Estate Team of the Year by the Builders Association of South Florida and received a Miami Realtors Give Back Community Award from the Miami Association of Realtors. The team also was honored in 2017 by the Latin Builders Association with a Real Estate Sales Team of the Year award.
Clients describe Garcia-Carrillo as reliable, professional and laid-back. “I can communicate my advice in a professional manner, but most importantly, I am trustworthy,” she says.
One recent challenge she faced was moving the team’s office to a new location in the Bird Road Arts District in one day. “We temporarily made my living room our headquarters,” she says. “We are all faced with challenges in business — that’s when you grow the most.”
Garcia-Carrillo supports Blue Missions Group, an organization that builds windmills to provide clean drinking water to families in third-world countries. She enjoys running, yoga, meditation, time with family and daring adventures such as helicopter snowboarding and gyrochopping.
