© 2024 WLRN
MIAMI | SOUTH FLORIDA
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Realtors in Sunny Isles' 'Little Moscow' Had High Hopes for Trump, Still Waiting for Change

Olga Yakovleva
/
Miami Herald
Eli Nektalov is CEO of Big International Realty in Sunny Isles Beach.

Last summer Eli Nektalov, CEO of Big International Realty, was optimistic a Trump presidency would improve US-Russia relations--and the local real estate business. 

Nektalov, whose company serves many Russian clients, is still waiting for President Trump to relax the sanctions imposed on Russia by the U.S. and its European allies after Moscow's failure to comply with the 2015 ceasefire agreement in Crimea. 

"There is not too much change," he said. "We'd been expecting, of course, much more."

[Read more: Praise For Trump In Sunny Isles' Little Moscow]

Big International Realty is based in Sunny Isles Beach, which is known to many as South Florida's "Little Moscow." 

Hits from Russia topped the list for property searches on the website for the Miami Association of Realtors in November and December of 2016. By March of this year, searches from that country had dropped out of the top 10. 

A bill to add more sanctions against Russia passed overwhelminglyin the Senate last week. The House has yet to vote on it. The U.S. Treasury Department also announced additional sanctions Tuesday against Russia, pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine and individuals and companies associated with them.

More On This Topic