Education is key to career change
By Richard Yager, Miami's Community Newspapers Online
Realtor Alcira Urdaneta Rentis adds "education" to traditional location" trio marking real estate value. A vibrant, young sales associate with "a love of figures" transformed her distinguished Venezuelan banking background into a successful real estate career with Miami Doral Realty, one of the area’s most prominent real estate companies.
"I would add one important word to the real estate slogan of ‘location, location, location," said Alcira Urdaneta Rentis, now completing her first year with the Doral firm she joined in May of 2002. "Education!" Descendant from a Caracas familywith three generations of lawyers dating back to her grandfather, she decided on a business education at the Universidad Metropolitana, Caracas, graduating with a degree in Business Management in 1983. In 1992, she furthered her education upon graduating from the Instituto Universitario de Seguros, also in Caracas, with a professional study of insurance.
Between study programs, she rose steadily in executive ranks during a near 10-year career with Banco de Venezuela of Caracas, eventually becoming a manager of corporate banking. She was then chosen as an executive representative for the bank’s affiliate, Banco de Venezuela International to establish expanded activity for developing corporation credit. "We were then initiating a much higher level of international credit, negotiating terms, and keeping track of U. S. dollars," she said.
Education and experience have been proven values to the wife of an engineer and mother of a seven-yearold daughter, a family to which she devoted her life after completing a banking career and establishing a new home in the U. S. "I even spent a winter in Boston, just to improve my language communications. It was freezing!" she said. It is no coincidence that her employer, Manny Gonzalez, is also a college graduate with a BS from Barry University and his Master’s of Business Administration from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University.
Sixteen years in the real estate business, Gonzalez and cobroker/owner Gladys Rodriguez have opened handsome new offices at 10783 NW 41st St. for 15 sales associates, amidst Doral’s newest growth, which has moved inexorably toward Florida Turnpike between NW 58th St. and the 836 Dolphin Expressway. As a team, Gonzalez and Rodriguez have had long associations with several of the most desirable gated residential properties in Doral, including Costa Del Sol, the Dorals, Costa Verde and adjacent communities.
The firm is particularly active in Doral Park and Doral Isles but has additional active listings in Miami Beach. Rentis believes Doral is "one of the best and most exciting places to live and have a business career in South Florida. We’re located central to everything and every place you would want to go in Dade County, with the best highways to get there."
Elsewhere, sales have also brought her into close association with residential properties on Key Biscayne, along Brickell Avenue and in Aventura and Coral Gables. An international background in banking, tri-linguality in English, Spanish and Greek, and extensive education in finance and insurance have put a personal spin on "location, location, location" by adding "education," she said.
"You must study the market just like you would a course in finance or investments. You need to know what is best for your customer, and, of course, where to locate instantly that townhouse with a two-car garage or a single-family home with pool, each within a specific price range that in Doral can run from $150,000 to over one million," she said. Both Miami Doral Realty and Rentis lace dependability and being in tune with industry technology as paramount among their objectives to best serve real estate sellers and buyers alike. "We combine them all with incomparable service that goes far beyond simply reaching a closing," she said. "We educate ourselves to our market and our customers benefit from that knowledge. That is what true professionalism is all about, in banking, real estate or any other endeavor that seeks to win the trust of those it serves."