Century 21 has somewhere around 100,000 sales associates and 7,000 offices in 73 countries. And last year, Treasure Island’s Dania Perry sold more real estate than any of them. She closed 97 deals — nearly two a week — worth $68 million.
In 2011, $61 million in sales made her Century 21’s top producer in the United States, after being number two in 2010.
Yet she only started selling real estate in 2006, as home sales slid toward an abyss.
“Every month, properties were dropping one percent or one and a half percent,” recalled James White, the real estate broker who gave Perry a shot.
He did so only after meeting her in person, because he did not realize her potential in their initial telephone conversations.
“When she said ‘engineer,’ it kind of took me back for a minute,” White admits, noting her background as an electrical engineer. Now, Perry and White claim that grounding in numbers is one of the keys to her success.
“My passion is using data and analysis and understanding wants and needs, and matching them and making the transaction work,” Perry explained. “I’m able to use data to help people make good decisions. And if you have good data and you make good decisions, you sell your house and you buy a house.”
The other key ingredients are an obsession with work, and her cell phone. “It’s glued,” she said. “Twenty-four seven. It sleeps next me. It’s with me at all times.”
Real estate agents who do not answer their phones or return her calls quickly greatly irritate her. She said she works seven days a week, taking a couple of weeks off in the summer.
“There’s no way I would work that hard if I wasn’t passionate about it,” Perry said. “I get up every morning around 6 o’clock, and I go to bed every night around 2:30.”
She is also married and has four children ages 8 to 14. Everyone in the family helps her, one way or another. They will travel with her to Las Vegas next month to receive Century 21’s “World’s Top Producer” award.
Perry’s goal for 2013 is $75 million in sales. White thinks that’s entirely possible because real estate prices are increasing, and Perry’s work ethic remains relentless.