Black luxury real estate agents make big deals in Miami. But there aren’t many

Real Estate News admin September 21, 2026 0 Comments

Black luxury real estate agents make big deals in Miami. But there aren’t many

Tenisha Williams worked as a correctional officer and boot camp instructor before she started selling South Florida real estate about a decade ago.

Growing up, Williams never imagined a career for herself in luxury real estate. But watching her now-husband buy a house piqued her interest in the industry. In 2017, she founded her own firm, Elite Realty Partners Inc. The next year, she sold her first million-dollar home.

Elite is one of the few Black-owned brokerages in the region. Earlier this summer, the firm closed its most expensive sale to date, a $5.6 million Broward County home sold to a professional athlete.

Williams is one of a small number of Black luxury real estate agents in South Florida. But she wants to see that number grow.

“It’s about exposure,” she said. “I didn’t know about real estate until I was 25 years old.”

A National Association of Realtors survey of its members found that white real estate agents averaged $356,000 in median sales, compared to Black agents earning $246,000. White real estate agents also averaged $1,998,000 in annual sales volume, the total dollar amount of property sold by an agent, whereas Black agents averaged $474,500 in sales volume.

Nathaniel Crawford, a Black Pompano Beach-based luxury agent, also wants to see more opportunities for Black agents in luxury real estate.

“I talk about the visibility and viability of Black agents. I believe that, very often, we have the viability piece covered,” Crawford said. “The challenge is the visibility piece.”

Part of his strategy to improve Black agents’ visibility is literal. Most days, Crawford wears bright shirts, like a rainbow-hued button-down he wore to a recent meeting at a downtown Miami condo sales gallery. He used to drive a purple Maserati with his face plastered on the side.

But it’s not just Crawford’s style that makes him stand out. Working in luxury real estate, Crawford said he’s often the only Black person in the room. But despite the challenges Black agents face, Crawford has found success in his nearly 20-year career selling luxury real estate in South Florida.

Crawford was born in Kendall and got his start in the South Florida real estate business selling high-end condos in Aventura and Sunny Isles Beach for the luxury brokerage Turnberry International Realty. He’s sold millions of dollars worth of property since he started with Turnberry in 2009.

He still remembers the day in 2015 when he closed a $30 million sale, one of the largest of his career so far. He showed up early to work at Turnberry Realty’s Aventura Mall sales center and connected with a man who helped finance the construction of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel & Residences Miami, a project expected to be the tallest building in Miami.

“It was the largest commission check that Turnberry Realty had ever received,” said the 48-year-old Crawford. “That commission obviously changed my life.”

Crawford started his career working in marketing but changed careers after a phone call from his late friend, Silas “SiMan Baby” Alexander, a well-known radio DJ who also worked in real estate.

“He called me and said, ‘I made $17,000 yesterday,’” Crawford said. “I signed up to get my real estate license the next day.”

Soon, Crawford sold his first home to a family near Atlanta that owned the daycare his daughter attended. From that point, Crawford never looked back. He moved back to South Florida in 2009, and he has since become one of the region’s most successful Black real estate agents.

Bridging the gap

Williams’ brokerage employs about 120 agents, many of whom are also Black, and it has closed nearly $1 billion worth of deals since its founding nearly a decade ago, she said. Elite Realty Partners is also launching a dedicated luxury division early next year. But Williams’ success as a luxury broker is not the norm for all Black agents.

Williams said she has been passed over by clients who would prefer to work with a white or Hispanic agent because it’s the “status quo” in South Florida. She said she hopes one day race won’t be a factor when choosing a real estate agent.

Williams also thinks it’s important to mentor early-career agents. But for her, it’s not just a way to pay it forward — it’s a necessity. Because her brokerage is smaller, newer and Black-owned, Williams said she has a hard time recruiting established agents.

“Every single agent that has come through these doors and became successful, I coach them to it,” Williams said. “I know for a fact if things were different, I would also be able to have the ones that are already successful.”

Navigating a changing Miami

As South Florida’s luxury real estate market continues to boom, Crawford said business has been strong.

Crawford expects the migration of wealth to South Florida to lead to more demand across the luxury real estate market, not just in enclaves like Indian Creek Village. For instance, he said, when billionaire Citadel CEO Ken Griffin moved his company’s headquarters to Miami, he also moved hundreds of highly paid employees with him that need places to live.

A report from Analytics Miami, a local real estate research firm, found that sales of condos worth $10 million or more were up more than 50% in the first half of 2026 compared to the first half of 2025.

Many of the properties Crawford sells are luxury pre-construction condos. He works with the Miami-based development firm PMG, which has been active in building branded condos in downtown and Wynwood, including the Delano Residences & Hotel Miami, Palm Tree Residences Miami and E11even Club Residences.

PMG is building what will become two of Miami’s tallest buildings, the Delano and the Waldorf Astoria. Both buildings will be supertalls, or skyscrapers 984 feet or taller.

Buying a pre-construction unit usually means putting down an initial deposit and paying in installments as the building gets closer to being completed. This can be a good option for people with high cash flow, Crawford said, like athletes or startup founders.

But that can come with its own risks, especially with an unscrupulous agent. Some agents will push buyers who can’t afford to buy a unit to put down a deposit so they get their commission.

Crawford said that when a client wants a unit, but he knows they can’t afford it, he’ll tell them that, rather than pushing them to make a bad financial decision.

“I want to go to heaven,” he said, laughing.