For much of the time since Mihaela Coprean arrived in Florida in 2009, she worked residential real estate sales in Southeast Florida and, since last year, Orlando. She credits her success in part to being able to speak to Latin American buyers in Spanish, a language with much in common with her native tongue, Romanian. She was born and raised in Transylvania — “I always jokingly say I’m Dracula’s cousin from Transylvania.”
In Romania, her mother managed two stores while her father worked in a glass factory until his job was lost in the shifting post-Communist economy. Her parents immigrated to Spain in 1996 for a fresh start, her father in construction while her mother took work cleaning houses and caring for the elderly. “I think that’s where I got my strength — from my grandparents and parents,” she says. “I’m very resilient.”
Coprean remained in Romania for college, earning degrees in foreign languages — she speaks English, Spanish and French — and in translating and conference interpreting. Joining her parents in Spain, she earned two graduate degrees.
She accompanied a Romanian government delegation to New York in 2006 as an interpreter and then in 2009 came to Florida as an aide to superstar Julio Iglesias to help organize his archives. From there, she went into real estate.
Florida’s Romanian immigrant population increased 18% in the last decade to 14,900 — about 9% of the Romanian foreign-born population in the U.S. The growth prompted the country to open a consulate in Miami a few years ago, says Lucian Purcareanu, press and cultural affairs officer at the Washington embassy of Romania. Broward, with 3,600 Romanian immigrants, places seventh nationally among counties with Romanian immigrants. Palm Beach, with 2,300, ranks fourteenth.
“My essence is Romanian. It’s really a beautiful country,” Coprean, 44, says. “I have three homes — Romania and Spain and the United States.”
Property Perusing
Would-be home buyers from Poland in February tallied the most searches among buyers from 149 countries for South Florida real estate, according to a Miami Association of Realtors report. Russians ranked fifth. Warsaw topped the list of international cities with people researching Miami real estate. Bogota was second and Moscow fourth. Florida for the last 15 years has been the top U.S. destination for foreign buyers, says the National Association of Realtors.
Top 10 Countries Searching MiamiRealtors.com in February 2024:
1. POLAND
2. COLOMBIA
3. FRANCE
4. UNITED KINGDOM
5. RUSSIA
6. CHINA
7. INDIA
8. ARGENTINA
9. CANADA
10. BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS