In late February, two weeks after President Donald Trump announced tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, Jorge Pérez cut an uncertain tone. “I used to be very good friends with Donald Trump before he went into politics. Then we realized we have very different views,” the 75-year-old billionaire condo developer told Forbes in a video interview from the Miami headquarters of his firm, the Related Group. “One of the things that worries us is the uncertainty. We're going through a bit of a roller coaster.”

Since those tariffs were announced, new building permits for housing units in the Miami area have collapsed by 29%, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Total condo and townhome sales in Miami and neighboring Broward county fell by 17% over the past year to $1.3 billion for the month of April, per the Miami Association of Realtors.

For Related, those tariffs had already led to fears that construction costs could rise as much as 20% in March. Then on June 3, Trump doubled the steel and aluminum tariffs to 50%. “The tariffs increase costs and you can't always necessarily raise prices to pass it on to customers, because depending on where you are on the market it's not an acceptable thing to do,” said Jon Paul Pérez, Jorge's 40-year-old son and Related's president and CEO. “That decreases our margins on some of our jobs.”

Trump’s crackdown on immigration is another huge concern. Roughly one in four construction workers in the U.S. are immigrants, and Trump’s policies have dealt a blow to developers like Related. “Immigration affects the labor costs that we have,” Pérez added. “In Jacksonville, we're building a condominium [complex], and [Governor Ron DeSantis] announced that they're really going to crack down on illegal workers. The next day, half of the workers had left for Georgia.”

Many of Related Group’s customers are also Latin American, at one point making up 80% of the firm’s buyers. “If Latin Americans are afraid of coming here or don't want to come here because they feel the attitude is wrong through tariffs and immigration, of course it affects our real estate business,” Pérez said.

Immigration is also a personal issue for Pérez. Born in 1949 to Cuban parents in Argentina, his family became exiles in 1959 when the Cuban government nationalized businesses after Fidel Castro’s revolution, eventually landing in Colombia. In 1968, at age 19, Pérez headed to Miami where he worked in a pizza restaurant and sold encyclopedias door-to-door. He got a scholarship to attend C.W. Post College in Long Island, earning a degree in economics before going to the University of Michigan for a master's in urban planning. He then returned to Miami to work as an urban planner focused on low-income communities and became a U.S. citizen in 1976.

Three years later, he launched Related Group in partnership with New York real estate billionaire Stephen Ross and his developer Related Companies. (Pérez bought out Ross’ 25% stake in Related Group for an undisclosed sum in 2022.) In March, he stepped down as CEO and handed day-to-day management of the business to his sons Jon Paul and Nick.

But Pérez, who is now worth an estimated $2.6 billion mostly from his 100% stake in Related as well as his extensive art collection of more than 7,000 works, is not giving up on the American dream. Especially his own. After all, he’s been in this business for more than four decades and claims to have built and managed more than 100,000 units. “We are part of the very lucky people that this country has allowed to make more money than I ever thought was possible,” he added.

Yes, labor and material costs will go up, but his company will adjust. “We’ve always been skilled at adapting to market shifts,” he said, noting that the firm has worked to improve its supply chain and construction methods and has only seen minimal cost increases due to tariffs.

So far, the market seems to be proving Pérez right. “There was a four-week pause in the marketplace where everyone was really panicked about the tariffs, and then the clouds parted and we're entering June as busy as it was in January,” said Dina Goldentayer, a real estate agent at Douglas Elliman who specializes in ultra-luxury condos. On the impact of higher labor and tariff costs, she likened it to insurance premiums going up. “Buyers are not walking away from buying a house because insurance is expensive. They use it as a leverage point in negotiations to get a slightly better deal, but it's not a reason not to buy.”

Pérez also considers the slowdown to be somewhat expected, and not necessarily driven by presidential policies. “For the last three years we've had a demand that I don't think is natural,” he said, referring to the period right after the Covid-19 pandemic when a wave of wealthy buyers moved to the area. “People are continuing to come to Miami. It isn't at the same rate as the exodus that happened, but we continue to have very strong demand. Our money is in south Florida, this is where we invest, and I think there's no better place over the next 10 years.”

To prove his point, he notes the robust sales at some of Related’s priciest projects, including Six Fisher Island, a luxury 10-story development with 50 units plus a marina, golf course and beach club; units start at $15 million. Related has already made more than $500 million in sales there, and properties are selling well above the median price of $1,000 per square foot in the Miami area in the first four months of 2025. “The top projects with good developers such as Related are still selling well and are getting really good prices per square foot,” said Marko Gojanovic, a real estate agent at MR Luxury Group and ONE Sotheby’s.

Even on the lower end, which has been much harder hit—prices for condos built three decades ago or older declined 21% over the past year, compared to an 8% increase for newer properties, according to luxury real estate firm ISG World—Pérez sees a buying opportunity. After a 40-year-old, 12-story condo building in the Miami suburb of Surfside collapsed and killed 98 people in 2021, Florida passed a law requiring inspections of high-rise condo towers when they hit 30 years of age and again every 10 years, with a deadline of December 31, 2024 for the first inspection. The approaching deadline pushed many owners of units in older buildings to put their properties on the market last year to avoid paying higher inspection costs.

While Related has little interest in old buildings, it is happy to pick them up at bargain prices and demolish them. In April, it partnered with two other firms to buy an oceanfront condo building in the suburb of Sunny Isles Beach for $140 million, with plans to knock it down and build an 820-foot “ultra-luxury” condo tower.

Related also has another 10,000 units in the pipeline on land already approved for development, set to begin construction in the next two and a half years. And Pérez has always been pragmatic: While half of his business comes from selling to the luxe set, the other 50% comes from rental apartments and affordable housing. “When market-rate [rentals] and condos go down, we always have that stable affordable arm that is constantly producing for the company,” added Nick Pérez, age 37, another of Jorge’s sons, who leads Related Group’s condo division.

Even if Miami continues to soften, he has luxury condos and rental apartments not only throughout Florida but also in Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina and further afield in Brazil and Mexico. “We believe in the future of south Florida and this country. The areas that we're in are very high-growth areas,” said Pérez. “We're ready to pounce whenever we feel the market is correct.”

He also knows when to cash out. In June, Pérez sold a recently completed, 259-unit luxury apartment tower in Fort Lauderdale to Spanish fast fashion billionaire Amancio Ortega for $165 million—28% less than its initial asking price but still one of the largest deals of its kind this year. Related had planned on selling it after it was fully leased to take advantage of growing interest from institutional investors in Miami apartment buildings.

While Pérez is concerned about the direction of the country in Trump’s second term, he’s far more optimistic about his home state: “From a long-term perspective, I see nothing but clear blue skies for south Florida.”