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Quick question: have you ever watched an entire industry ignore a group of buyers simply because it assumed it already knew them?

That's what happened in Miami real estate for decades. And one developer turned that blind spot into a $2.6 billion fortune.

His name is Jorge Pérez. He was born in Argentina to Cuban parents, raised in Colombia, moved to Miami in his 20s with almost nothing. He founded the Related Group in 1979, starting in affordable housing in Little Havana. Elderly residents. Low-income families. Neighborhoods other developers drove past without slowing down.

But Pérez was paying attention to something else too. He was watching the Latin American professional class arrive in Miami. Colombian entrepreneurs, Argentine investors, Venezuelan families, Brazilian business owners. People with serious capital moving into the city. And he noticed that nobody in the luxury market was speaking to them. Not because the money wasn't there. Because the industry had already made up its mind about what a "Latino buyer" was.

He decided to follow the actual data instead.

By the early 2000s, Related Group was developing luxury condos with price points starting above $1 million. The buildings had world-class design, art installations, and amenities calibrated specifically for Latin American taste and lifestyle. The industry thought this was a strange bet.

It wasn't. Today roughly half of Related Group's buyers come from Latin America. At several projects, Colombian buyers alone make up close to 45% of sales. When Colombia's government shifted left in 2022 and wealthy locals started moving capital out of the country, Pérez was already in Bogota, already in meetings, already trusted. He didn't show up when the opportunity became obvious. He'd been there for years.

Related Group has now built and sold over $50 billion in real estate across more than 100,000 residences. That number started with one developer willing to see a buyer group that his competitors had written off.

The same pattern is happening right now in other markets, with other groups, and most industries are making the exact same mistake.

Gulf Arab buyers are making all-cash offers on properties above $5 million in Manhattan, gravitating toward branded residences like Aman New York. Knight Frank executives describe these clients as seeking anonymity and exclusivity in the prime market. For years, most brokers weren't targeting them at all.

Chinese buyers have become the dominant force in Dubai's luxury property segment, surpassing Indian buyers at the top end. Developers are now building Mandarin-friendly services into their projects. The demand existed long before the industry noticed it.

Indian wealthy families are spending heavily on premium goods and international real estate right now. International buyers purchased $56 billion in US homes from April 2024 to March 2025. Indian buyers are a growing piece of that number, and still largely underserved by most American luxury brokers.

In each case: the money was already there. The demand was already there. The buyers were just waiting for someone to show up and take them seriously.

Most businesses market to themselves. Developers who grew up in suburban America designed for buyers who thought about status the same way they did. When the whole team shares the same background, the blind spots are invisible from inside the room.

There's also a cheaper explanation. Actually understanding a new buyer group takes travel, relationships, time, and humility. Assuming a demographic doesn't buy luxury is free. Most businesses default to the cheap option, which means the expensive option almost always goes uncontested for years.

Pérez didn't invent Latin American luxury demand. He just looked at income data, migration flows, and capital movement and saw what was already happening. By the time competitors arrived at the same conclusion, he had relationships and trust that took decades to build. That gap is nearly impossible to close.

The most profitable buyers are often the ones your competitors have already decided to ignore.

Start by looking at your industry's marketing and product design and asking one honest question: who is consistently missing from the picture? Not because those people don't exist, but because the industry never bothered looking. That absence is where the opportunity usually sits.

When someone says "that demographic doesn't buy premium," ask how they know. Most of the time the answer is instinct, not research. Go find the actual numbers. Income data, spending patterns, migration trends. They're publicly available and they regularly tell a completely different story from the assumption.

Then go where those buyers already are. Pérez traveled to Bogota. He didn't wait for buyers to walk into a Miami sales office. Wherever your underserved group spends time, whether that's specific cities, specific online communities, or specific events, show up there before you need anything from them.

That last part matters more than most people realize. The reason Pérez's position is so strong is that his relationships predate the market. When wealthy Colombians needed to move capital quickly in 2022, they already knew who to call. Build that before the opportunity becomes obvious, because once it's obvious, everyone shows up at once and the advantage disappears.

Every industry has a version of this hiding inside it right now. A buyer group with real money and real demand that the dominant players have already dismissed based on a category assumption rather than actual data.

Who is your industry not talking to?

Until next time,
Emil - Founder of Income Ivy

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