By his reckoning, Jorge Pérez may have lost more money than anyone in the 2008 financial crisis. The founder of the Related Group, Florida’s largest property developer, watched $3bn in condominium sales evaporate as buyers walked away from towers that would become emblems of the property crisis. To make matters worse, as Pérez was haggling with lenders over some $2.5bn in debts, doctors discovered a golf-ball-sized tumour in his pancreas that would require 11 hours of surgery.
“It changed me completely,” Pérez, 74, says of those days. “You go through 30 years of thinking you’re the hottest thing in the world. I mean, lenders would bring their private jets to take me to their board meetings. They would fight and fight and fight to give me my next loan.”
Pérez is now restored to health. So, too, is Related. It has not only reclaimed its standing as the dominant force in Florida real estate but also expanded across the American sunbelt — from Phoenix to Atlanta — while launching developments in Brazil and Argentina. The man renowned as America’s “condo king” is at last vacating his throne, handing over the family business to his sons, Jon Paul, 39, and Nick, 35.