Martha Lucia Pereira, 52 years old, always presents herself the same: Colombian presenter, actress and model. However, she has long since left the catwalks and cameras. The reason is that, since He came to live in Spain 24 years ago, has become the queen of the luxury real estate sector in the richest district of Madrid. For two decades, everyone who is anyone in the capital has asked Pereira if she has a luxury apartment to offer them. “Luxury works with word of mouth,” she summarizes.
Don’t look for them: their apartments do not appear on the Idealista website or on any other real estate agency, no matter how high-class it may be. Pereira’s menu is always off the menu. “My best acquisitions are off the market [fuera de mercado, en inglés]”, he confesses. The prices of their homes range between two and five million euros. For a long time, he says, 99% of his clients have been Latin Americans.
He cannot name names because he has signed confidentiality agreements that prevent him from revealing the identity of those he works for. It is not difficult to imagine some other name: all their clients are part of high society from countries like Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela. Many he has never seen in person. “My clients are very busy business owners who resolve their business in minutes via video call. The other day I sold an apartment on Lagasca Street to a Mexican for six million euros in less than an hour via Zoom,” he says.
Pereira is the CEO of the company Presvip Real Estate, a position from which he has been able to see the transformation that the Madrid district of Salamanca has experienced. Metamorphosis, by the way, to which she herself has contributed decisively: she counts dozens of apartments in the neighborhood that she has sold to large foreign fortunes. “It all started when Hispanic high society started asking me where they could invest. For many years, the answer has always been the same: in the Salamanca neighborhood,” explains the businesswoman.
“I loved the neighborhood because you saw the elegant ladies from Madrid taking their dogs or with their families, but that is no longer the case. Now there are rivers of people,” says Pereira, who has almost done his own sociological study of the area and who believes that it is now saturated: “The traditional bars are now empanada stands and the stores or boutiques have become specialty coffees.” .
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What really changed everything in the neighborhood for Pereira was the pandemic. The people of Madrid sold out, the rich Latinos arrived and the traditional aristocracy went to the outskirts of Madrid, mainly to areas like Valdebebas, La Moraleja and Mirasierra, where they can enjoy the same kind of isolation that they have always enjoyed in the Salamanca neighborhood. . “They went in search of parks, tranquility for their families and, of course, fleeing foreign investment.”
Pereira explains that Venezuelans have bought entire buildings that they are now renovating and selling at a bargain price. He remembers buying an apartment in 2015 from one of his luxury clients where the subway was 5,000 euros. Now, it is 10,000 euros. “In Recoletos we are selling for 14,000 euros per meter and wealthy Colombians are fighting for those apartments,” he says. If these investors are clear about one thing, it is that they want their apartments for investment. If possible, they want them with views of Retiro Park.
“I have seen with my eyes how the real estate bubble began in the capital. Because although the neighborhood seems big, it is very small and we know everything that is for sale, who buys it and for how much,” he says. Pereira is living his best moment. “The market is on fire [ardiendo, en ingles]”, he boasts. Its biggest clients, in addition to foreigners, are investment funds. “They are only interested in numbers and are 100% focused on buying entire buildings to make homes for tourist rentals,” he summarizes from the living room of a tourist rental apartment that he is selling for more than a million euros on Hortaleza Street. . He has no doubt that the apartment will be sold in a matter of days because it has a tourist rental license, something that is increasingly coveted in the capital.
Most of her clients contact her through friends from Colombian entertainment who recommend her. Others, between wines, at social events where they coincide. “I don’t like the figure of the real estate agent. I don’t want to live with the pressure of having to meet certain goals. That doesn’t work when you sell luxury,” she says.
Pereira, not considering herself a real estate agent, offers the complete package to her VIP clients: private plane to get to Madrid, luxury cars with drivers to get around the capital, selection of the best schools for her clients’ children, famous managers with whom you can discuss everything related to your personal finances and the best leisure that the fashionable city offers. At the end of the trip, everything is sealed with the signing of a promise of sale of the house they have just acquired. “I establish a relationship of trust with my clients. “I do this job because I enjoy it and I sell it as an experience,” she clarifies.
Pereira fled Colombia in 1999, after the government of Ernesto Samper, marked by drug trafficking. “I left it because of insecurity and never returned. I lived in Mallorca and there I learned about the luxury market from Engel & Völkers,” he recalls. However, during his years in the Latin American country he pursued a career as a model and won the Ford Latin Model of the World and Ford Super Model of the World awards. He has lived in the United States, Mexico and Hong Kong, where, he says, he worked with the best designers in the world: “I am the muse of the great Colombian designer Hernán Zajar.”
He later worked on several television series such as Masquerade and Revenge. When she left Colombia, she married a Spanish man and had three children. “I became a business woman, although I have never left aside my training as an actress,” she says.
His recognized name in Colombia has meant that he never lacks work in Spain. “Many of my Latin buyers know who I am and that is why they come especially for me to serve them. “I am your trusted reference for investing in Madrid,” she says, proudly. The city, however, is beginning to worry him: “I am concerned about the issue of insecurity, before many things did not happen. People come looking for peace of mind and that has also changed.” While she thinks about her next adventure, Pereira will continue selling the best apartments to the wealthy Hispanics who little by little make up the new aristocracy of the Madrid court.
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