Title: 
Salesperson
Company: 
Citigroup Realty Inc.
Location: 
605 W. Flagler Street
Miami, FL 33130
United States
Florida US

Persistence pays, especially when you’re as tenacious as Rodriguez. It took the commercial broker and property manager two and a half years of phone calls, letters, and e-mail to earn the trust of a local seller. Now that client deals with him exclusively. This never-take-no attitude helped Rodriguez close 24 transaction sides worth more than $26 million in 2006.

Public sector knowledge: Before he became a broker, Rodriguez spent three years as an employee of the Florida Department of Transportation, acquiring $400 million in land for such projects as the Miami Airport Intermodal Center. “It was an invaluable experience that taught me to deal with adverse situations and all the logistical matters relating to real estate, including land title, engineering, and more,” he says.

Freedom to achieve: What that job didn’t do was offer Rodriguez the freedom to work with his own clients. In 2004 he left for the private sector, working as a commercial broker. In 2006 he also opened his own property management operation with his fiancée, Lourdes. “I like the independence and the sense that I own my time,” he says. He focuses much of his activity in the up-and-coming Little Havana neighborhood, working with investor clients.