Portuguese-American businesswoman Michelle Pais’ success earned her a television show in the United States, a platform she plans to take advantage of to let the world know what’s best in Portugal.
At the age of 43, Michelle is already a household name in New Jersey, a state where she consolidated her career as a luxury broker and where she founded Signature Realty NJ, which employs approximately 500 brokers in eight offices.
Her success in the real estate business combined with a good dose of ambition resulted in the television program 24 Hour Flip, which premiered last weekend on North American channel A&E and where the businesswoman and her husband, Jonathan Steingraber, show total renovations. to homes – carried out in just 24 hours – and with mostly Portuguese teams.
Speaking to Lusa, Michelle Pais admitted she thought it was impossible to remodel in that record time.
“The idea of selling houses and renovating them in 24 hours came from my husband, who is also an investor in addition to my partner in real estate. Since he was 20 When he was about six years old, he bought, repaired and sold houses. was about six years old, he got really frustrated with the process taking so long,” explains Michelle.
“He then came up with the idea of doing all this in 24 hours. When he told me, I thought he was crazy, that there was no way to make this happen. Maybe no one in the country ever had this idea of” looking for a house, buy one house and completely renovate it in just 24 hours…
Michelle Pais, who describes herself as a “very hard-working, determined, ambitious and passionate woman for what she does”, ensures that the innovation of the program – which employs about 50 people – was the key to its success and now dreams of it already of taking the format to Portugal.
“God willing, one day we can also go to Portugal and start renovating houses within 24 hours,” said the businesswoman, who has more than 4,000 homes sold in her personal portfolio, mainly between 1 million and 10 million dollars (940 euros). thousand and 9.4 million euros), but it has already risen to 17 million dollars (16 million euros).
However, real estate was not always in the offing for the Portuguese-American woman, who was studying to become a lawyer.
To pay for her university studies, Michelle Pais got a job as a secretary in a real estate agency and it took her a short time to make her first sale, which happened to be to a Portuguese man.
From that moment on, he knew his professional life would span the industry, spanning nearly 22 years of career.
New project passes through Portugal
With roots in Carregal do Sal, where her parents are from, Michelle divided her childhood and adolescence between the US and Portugal. The fact that she never lost touch with her roots made her want to surround herself with “Portuguese” workers in all the projects she embraced.
And looking to the future, the businesswoman is already working on her next project, in which she will combine her passion for decoration and design with her pride in being Portuguese.
“Right now I’m in the process of launching [um projeto em] another sector and has to do with products for the home, ‘design’ and ‘lifestyle’. This is another passion I have. I like ‘design’, I like everything to do with houses, so it’s a project I’m working on and I think it will launch before the end of the year,” he told Lusa.
“It’s called ‘Pais Life’ and most of the fabrics for the beds and pillows come from Portugal. I’m very proud to be Portuguese and to be able to bring a little bit of Portugal to the United States. It’s all top quality. Nothing goes wrong above Portugal in the textile and ceramics sector. I am very proud and very happy to represent Portugal in the US,” he underlined.
Source: DN
