A version of this article first appeared in the CNBC Property Play newsletter with Diana Orrick. Property Play covers new and evolving opportunities for real estate investors, from individuals to venture capitalists, private equity funds, family offices, institutional investors and large publicly traded companies. Sign up to receive future editions directly to your inbox. It’s not often that we see completely new business models in an industry as old as residential real estate. Indeed, marketing strategies are evolving with new technology, and agency commissions and pricing structures are becoming more competitive. However, a real estate company’s primary job is to sell properties. Not so, says Ryan Serhant, founder of the real estate company that bears his name. He is also an executive producer and star of a reality show on Netflix, as well as a social media influencer, author, and teacher. “We’re not selling real estate. We’re selling people. Agents are our customers every day,” Serhant said as he sat down with the Property Play podcast at the company’s Soho, New York, headquarters. That means letting his agent do what he wants. That includes commercial real estate, which he says is about 10% of his business but is rapidly expanding. This also includes multifamily buildings. “We’re seeing money coming in from people who have never been in commercial real estate before, because I think the over-the-top discussion and thought process has stabilized prices, not just in this city, but in parts of Florida and parts of the Carolinas,” Serhant said. “And right now, to be honest, we’ve had high interest rates for the last three years. So a lot of these owners, if they’re on adjustable mortgages and wondering what to do, they’re just starting to get real for the first time. So buyers are coming in and jumping on things.” On the hit Netflix show “Owning Manhattan,” Serhant describes a trophy commercial property on Park Avenue South as an event. We intentionally emphasize the story of an agent who decides to sell the space. He said he wanted to take advantage of what appears to be a strong recovery in the struggling office sector. “Two years ago, we spent a lot of time talking about the difference between tenant space and vacant space, so they might have a lease, but they’re not really showing up,” he said. “There were really, really dark buildings, but they were fully leased. Today, people are coming and going. You see the transit, the subways, the restaurants. It’s incredibly busy.” Serhant said he sees all of this as part of the real estate “ecosystem” he’s building. “We help you with where to rent, where to buy, where to work, and everything in between. And I think people are looking for integration between services, and I think we can provide that in a way that other real estate companies can’t,” he said. In the housing sector, Mr. Serhant recently criticized rival Compass for announcing its acquisition of Anywhere Real Estate and significantly increasing its number of agents. “Scale doesn’t automatically lead to better results,” Serhant said in a video posted to LinkedIn. “Integration does not equal innovation,” he elaborated on during our conversation. “I think Compass has obviously made a very big public bet to bring consumer mindshare to a real estate platform by saying that engagement is a byproduct so that they can kill Zillow. That’s why they’re trading at a higher multiple. And I totally understand that and I’m all for that fight and they should get out. We’re doing it very differently,” Serhant said. He said he is prioritizing tools that help agents connect more with customers, such as S.MPLE, an artificial intelligence platform that automates administrative, marketing and transaction management tasks. He doesn’t seem to be afraid of technology, deriding the recent sell-off in commercial real estate stocks over concerns about AI. “AI has been a big part of our process since the beginning. I’m a salesperson, and if I can use technology to sell real estate to anyone, anytime, anywhere, on any device, I’ll take that opportunity,” he said. He’s also big into branded mansions, like the Mercedes-Benz mansion in Miami. Serhant, along with US-based real estate firm JDS Development Group, announced in March 2024 that it had sold 100 units in a 67-story mixed-use residential project in Brickell in just four days. Serhant strongly believes that a brand is much more than the actual product itself. “It tells the buyer that there is authenticity in the product. Since the 1940s, Mercedes has been associated with luxury in the brain, so it’s still luxury,” Serhant said. “People come from Egypt, and they come with Mercedes keychains. They wear Mercedes hats and they talk about how they were young and growing up poor. They saw someone drive by in a Mercedes Benz. They were eight years old, so it was For them, they thought they had made it. So there was no question about the opportunity to buy an apartment in North America’s first Mercedes-branded home.”Last month, he launched the first Roche Beauvoir-branded home in St. Petersburg, Fla., and said it sold out “within a few weeks.” He also said branded real estate can also be a strategy for commercial real estate. But the Serhant brand is his main focus. Social media photographers flock to his office every day, but when I ask him if there will be a third season of Owning Manhattan, he smiles shyly. “‘Owning Manhattan’ is first and foremost a founder’s journey, right? It’s like, ‘Let’s take on the world and see what happens,’ and it’s like going through the hiring and firing process and experiencing beautiful New York City,” Serhant said. “And, yes, it was a big global megaphone for me to send a message to the world that we’re building something that’s differentiated in the market.”
