For South Florida Agent Senada Adžem, Finding the Right Buyer Is a Global Game
by ELLIMAN INSIDER TEAM
February 2025
By David Hay
In the world of ultra-luxury real estate, relationships are everything. For South Florida power broker Senada Adžem, navigating the rarefied circles of high-net-worth individuals isn’t just part of the job—it’s an art form.
As Executive Director of Luxury Sales for Douglas Elliman and founder of the Boca Raton-based Senada Team, Adžem specializes in representing some of the most coveted properties on the market, often commanding prices well above $100 million. Catering to billionaire buyers requires more than expertise; it demands discretion, strategic vision, and an intimate understanding of what defines true luxury.
But where do you find those billionaire buyers—and how do you interest them in your amazing properties?
“It’s not easy,” Adžem acknowledges. “Especially now, when many of the ultra-wealthy and famously private come from outside the U.S.”
And yet, time and again, she’s shown a rather consistent knack for locating, interesting, and successfully selling homes to these elusive buyers—most recently the truly spectacular Casa Maranello.
The 20,723-square-foot, seven-bedroom estate located in Delray Beach’s exclusive Stony Creek Ranch community was listed in November 2024 for $55 million. Scarcely a month and a half later, the palatial property was confirmed under contract for the asking price.
A Woman of the World
A former refugee who spent her teenage years in Sarajevo, amid the daily perils of the Bosnian War, before going on to work for the United Nations and living in Washington D.C., Adžem is certainly a citizen of the world. Of course, many of her moneyed prospects can be reached via digital media, but she works best in-person. Running in the same circles as she does, it helps that this elegant, worldly businesswoman also looks the part. (“My favorite designers are Alexander McQueen and Roland Mouret,” she shares.)
But how, then, do you market to these potential buyers? I ask.
The answer is: a combination of strategies. The first is to meet on their own turf. One particular approach has been partnering with the uber-luxury Badrutt’s Palace Hotel in St. Moritz, in the Swiss Alps. Adžem co-hosts cocktail parties with them in Switzerland and in New York and advertises in their publications.
“It’s a way of making their clientele—and the advisers and managers who work for them—more fully aware of what we’re offering,” she says, adding that sometimes she hosts gatherings in the listed homes themselves. “Parties don’t get people to buy a home, but they keep me in touch with people who may do something three or five years from now.”
Having raised her own profile among her target audience as regular media personality on business news networks, Adžem became a certified celebrity through her appearances on CNBC’s Secret Lives of the Super Rich and Bravo’s Million Dollar Listing. (Although Secret Lives has been retired, she continues to do CNBC segments with the show’s co-creator and presenter, Ray Parisi, including captivating 20-minute tours of many of her listings.)
Even in a market where luxury real estate has hit astounding new heights in recent years, Adžem’s listings stand out.
“Since COVID, the level of transactions has changed,” she explains. “Back then we were seeing transactions in the low $20 millions, but now they’re around $60 million.”
Further, the definition of “luxury” itself has changed and now includes amenities like a deep-water dock for your yacht and—in the case of Casa Maranello—an automobile gallery. (Yes, for her clientele, “garage” has been long since retired from the property listing lexicon.)
Casa Maranello was built and designed by the developer Aldo Stark and his wife, Fiorenna. A member of the Ferrarista community of superfans, Stark owns 14 of the iconic Italian sportscars. He and Fiorenna dreamed up the concept for Casa Maranello—a tribute to the hometown of the Ferrari factory—while careening with other Ferraristas through northern Italy and Switzerland.
Entering this contemporary palace is a jaw-dropping experience. The single-story home comprises expansive, double-height rooms that flow into one another and feature marble on their high walls, chandeliers above, and Fiorenna Stark-designed furniture unique to every room.
Its grand salon is a true showpiece, a lush interior overlooking views of the resort-style pool. Adjacent is the Maranello Bar, truly a “club in your own house.” Its expansive dining area is anchored by a striking, 20-person Brazilian onyx dining table.
In addition to a vintage Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa in the living room, 12 of Stark’s cars had been on display in the aforementioned auto gallery.
If Adžem faced a problem in marketing the house, surely it was how to include every one of its manifold features. I ask her how she approaches introducing a potential buyer to a house like this.
“I say simply, ‘Welcome to one of the great luxury homes in America,’ and then let that quietly sink in,” she says.
Ingenuity over adversity
While much of the exuberance driving the South Florida market in recent years has centered on Miami and Palm Beach, Adžem calls Boca Raton a “secret weapon” that offers proximity and access to all the benefits that buyers have come to expect from the area.
“These are educated people,” she says of her clients. “They want access to museums and the ballet, as well as quality schools nearby for their children.”
A Boca resident herself, Adžem devotes time and energy working with the less fortunate and sharing her wide experience with other businesswomen. She is on the board of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Palm Beach County and has even given a TEDx Talk, entitled “Ingenuity in the Face of Adversity,” in 2016.
“After what I’d been through in Bosnia, I was lucky enough to earn a scholarship to Graceland University in Iowa that set me off on a new course,” she says. “It’s important to me to give back.”
Adžem understand that her clients did not get to where they are in life idly. They worked hard for it, many of them in the face of unimaginable adversity—just as she has. Observing the quiet yet seemingly boundless confidence she has cultivated, I imagine that helps to make a billionaire feel right at home.
David Hay is a well-known architectural writer and playwright. His stories have been featured in The New York Times, Dwell and New York.
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