Ryan Serhant

In 2007, after a year of participating in stock photo shoots to pay rent, Serhant landed his first role as Evan Walsh on the soap opera As the World Turns.[13] When his acting career slowed, he turned to hand modeling, posing for products including AT&T phones and Nespresso pods.[14] However, with little interest in hand modeling as a life-long career, Serhant re-directed his efforts to real estate sales at the urging of a friend.

In 2008, against the backdrop of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and the sub-prime mortgage industry collapse, Serhant ventured into the New York real estate market.[15] He initially earned his real estate license as a means of supporting himself while auditioning for acting roles in lieu of bartending.[16][15] During his first year, Serhant worked to solicit new real estate business in creative ways, including distributing flyers which declared himself the number one broker in New York City[13] and approaching shoppers well-endowed with purchases on the streets of NYC.[15] During his first year in real estate, he earned just $9,000.[13] After a year-long pursuit, he closed his first major sale of $8.5 million.[13] By 2012, The Real Deal had ranked Serhant #15 out of the 100 most successful agents in New York.[13]

Hired at Nest Seekers International in 2008, Serhant became executive vice president and managing director.[17][18] In 2012, he launched his bi-coastal brokerage team, the Serhant Team, which consists of over 60 people in New York City, New Jersey, Los Angeles, Miami, and the Hamptons.[5] His team specializes in high-end residential condo and co-op sales, homes, and new development sales.[5]

Serhant and his team have implemented creative strategies to close deals. Their past strategies have included hiring a marching band to showcase the effectiveness of an apartments' double-pane windows,[19] staging a magic show and coining a new NYC neighborhood - SoHY,[20] and throwing an 80's themed party complete with a DeLorean parked outside to enhance the nostalgia of a home's decor.[21] As a closing gift following a $17 million condo sale on the Upper East Side, Serhant once had a custom wooden dollhouse worth $2,000 made for the client's nine-year-old daughter.[22] Serhant Team deals include the sale of Ellie Tahari's Astor Place property for $15.5 million,[23] over 100 units at 550 Vanderbilt,[24] and a $30 million sale at 152 Elizabeth Street to a venture capitalist at Benchmark Capital.[25]

Serhant's team has set price-per-square-foot sales records across Manhattan, Brooklyn and Long Island City and have a list-to-sale ratio of 94.5%.[26] In 2017, his team closed $838 million in total Manhattan real estate deals.[27] In 2019, The Serhant Team completed over $1.4 Billion in total transactions.

On September 15, 2020, Serhant announced he was starting his own real estate firm, SERHANT.[28] The firm has quickly grown[29] into one of the most active real estate companies in the United States, using their large social media exposure of over 3.6 million followers to sell properties such as the $33 million Penthouse at ARTE Surfside in Miami[30] and 809 Madison Avenue in New York for $69 million.[31]

In 2010, Serhant auditioned for the Million Dollar Listing New York (MDLNY) reality show and was cast as one of three real estate agents featured on the show.[32][13] The first episode of MDLNY aired on Bravo on March 7, 2012, and followed agents Ryan Serhant, Fredrik Eklund, and Michael Lorber across some of New York's most exclusive real estate deals.[33] Because the show is not scripted or staged, sales on the show are not always finalized, making for a real-world television experience.[34]

Serhant has appeared on CNN, CNBC, FOX, NBC, ABC, and CBS.[5] In 2018, Serhant gave a keynote address at Agent 2021 with Gary Vaynerchuk.[35] Serhant has been quoted in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Wall Street Journal China and Forbes.[5]

Since his debut on Million Dollar Listing, Serhant has also appeared on Inside Amy Schumer, and in 2014, Serhant made his film debut, co-starring in Noah Baumbach's 2014 film, While We're Young.[34]

In 2017, Serhant produced and launched the Bravo television show Sell It Like Serhant, a spin-off of MDLNY in which he coaches under-performing salespeople, helping them improve their sales skills. Serhant is known for recommending improvisation classes to new sales associates to get them up-to-speed quickly.[13]

The 9th Season of Million Dollar Listing New York is set to premiere in the spring of 2021, along with a new spin-off show featuring Serhant.

On September 18, 2018, the week of his 10-year anniversary in real estate, Serhant debuted his first book, Sell It Like Serhant: How to Sell More, Earn More, and Become the Ultimate Sales Machine,[36] which became a best-seller on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Los Angeles Times book lists.[37]

In 2020, he announced his second book, Big Money Energy, written during quarantine.[38] The book will be available on February 2, 2021.

On August 15, 2019, Ryan Serhant launched Sell It Like Serhant: The Course, a real estate sales course that sold over $100,000 a day at launch.[39] Since then, the course became the #1 bestselling real estate course of all time[40] and has grown to over 6,000 members in 108 countries.

On September 14, 2014, Serhant shut down Times Square and proposed to lawyer Emilia Bechrakis.[41] On July 7, 2016, the two married in Corfu, Greece, in a Greek church following Serhant's conversion to the Greek Orthodox Church.[42] A four-part mini-series, Million Dollar Listing New York: Ryan’s Wedding chronicled the event and aired on Bravo in fall of 2016.[43][44] The couple welcomed a daughter in February 2019.[45]