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Today, I go to confront Ryan Serhant. He's the dude from Million Dollar Listing New York. I thought about delivering him flowers, but then thought I would handle this one face-to-face. After all, we both have YouTube channels. I have a course for real estate investors. He has to teach you how to be a no pressure agent and teach you that psychology.
But let's figure out where we differ. My thing is I'm all about helping people start. Sure. And so when people look at you, they're seeing, okay, so you're selling multi-millions worth of real estate every year. How could you help somebody maybe everyday? Perfect. Who helps somebody who's starting out or what recommendations would you give to them if they were just starting out?
or for brokering? Both. Um we can ask Sarah, too, and see kind of where she started. For me, you know, starting off as a real estate investor is takes a lot of risk and takes capital. Now, heads up. What Ryan is about to say, in my opinion, is true if you want to be a full-time investor, but if you're just looking to invest in real estate, I always recommend start with that wedge deal and start small.
And if you don't know what you're doing and if you've never been a part of the process before, it's the fall can be incredibly hard. So I'm I'm pretty fiscally conservative and professionally conservative. As crazy as people may think I am with regards to marketing, my business, the areas I go into, the risk for me here really is like, okay, so I don't sell something.
Mhm. I was going to spend money on marketing anyway. I want listings anyway. Like if it doesn't sell, it's not like I lose my house. Interesting. So there's like this benefit to just to being an agent because your risk is limited. start. So you know, the some of the biggest developers in the city, some of the biggest you know, property investors and flippers are people who at least at the beginning started doing their own started doing their own brokering and were like rental agents and just learning the process and seeing what other people were going through.
So like someone young on my team would learn from Sarah as a broker and say, okay, you bought this for what? And then you put $400,000 into it. So you're looking to make a $500,000 profit. Okay, this is how the math works. This is how the city works. Like what do you do when the city says you can't use that fence there anymore?
And they back you up 6 months. How do you cover those carrying costs? How do you cover the taxes? How do you cover the workers that you still need on site here who then want to go elsewhere because the plumber won't come back until this is signed off on like all that stuff that no one thinks about because all they think about is the money is stuff that you need to see from a conservative viewpoint which I think is on the broker side point first and then get into the investing cuz then you'll see the best deals.
Like all the properties that I bought and we can go outside. Yeah, let's do it. You're like bouncing Come on in. Yeah, and starting on the broker side might give you that exposure to what people are doing. Yeah, so you you yeah, you get exposure to what people are doing and Sarah can tell you that as well.
Now, for this part, keep in mind Ryan says he uses a stock broker to help him invest, but also says that agents themselves get the best deals. I disagree with that. I think clients that surround themselves with professional agents, the way , end up surrounding themselves with multiple bird dog agents that can get them great deals.
You also you see the best deals, right? So you see like like I you know, I I don't know what the best trades are in equity markets. Like I I don't have a Bloomberg terminal. I'm not at Morgan Stanley. So that's why I work with even though I could invest my own money, I don't because I work with an insider who You give it to a professional.
knows what they're doing and that's all they do all day long. So same thing on the broker side, you'll see the worst and the best deals everyday and just like with myself and just like with Sarah and her husband Josh, the good ones kind of say, oh, I'll just jump on that on my own. Like I completely get it.
I know the numbers are and I'm okay with the risk. The great agents who've seen this and have helped other clients do it, they jump on well, I may as well do that deal. Now, a question I have for you is so many buyers today, they you know, they they look at fixer-uppers or they look at remodeled properties and they look and say, oh well, I can just go to open houses.
I'm brand new to real estate investing. I'll figure it out myself or I'll call, you know, a discount agent or something just to write up the paperwork. What's your response to people trying to cut out the professional? Uh I mean, look at anytime anyone's tried to cut out a professional, it it hardly hardly ever works unless you're reinventing, you know, the whole business model, right?
Unless you're like, I don't know, Elon Musk and you're going to create electric cars. Like And you reinvent everything anyway. I think every developer and every investor tries to do something better than the next guy. Sure. Um but like here, the goal that we're talking about here is how to create income, how to make money and how to also create passive wealth because let's say that they didn't want to then sell this house or the market disappears.
Like you then have a beautiful product that you can rent and you want to make sure that that's always your plan B. So you want to go through those numbers. So whether you're getting into brokerage at the beginning or getting into real estate development, my biggest advice is always to work for someone else for like 2 years.
Treat that as law school, right? That's your grad school. Okay? Like and when you go to grad school, you spend a lot of money and make no money. This way you'll actually make a little bit of money. That's an interesting perspective. money, but at least you won't make mistakes. That way like you're not graduating from high school or from college and then saying, you know what?
I'm a lawyer now or I'm a doctor. No one does that. And there's a reason why they go to It's your residency. It's the residency. So you I would say do the same thing. And so like there for us, it's you know, the Serhant Team University, it's those first couple years that are just really brutal and tough and not everyone makes it.
For development, you might want to work underneath somebody else who's doing the same thing that you like. And then too, you might also realize at that point a year into it like I don't like what they like with the houses. This is actually terrible. I really like doing this and then you'll go over there and you know, at least you'll learn something without having like gone bankrupt.
No kidding. So I mean, if you were to start over, I mean, looking at something like there's a basement down here, too, it looks like. Yeah, Sarah can talk about this house cuz it's hers. Oh. What's interesting I think is like with Josh and Sarah, Right? They had their brokerage. Yes. And they're brokers.
Yeah. Right? They do deals all day long. Um they run a team of agents who do deals all day long, but they see the best deals that understand the market so like so clearly to their core that they also do their own deals. Right? And the income that you can make on selling this house compared to what you can make brokering the house.
Yeah. When you do it right, right? It's a lot more. dramatically more. Sarah, I mean, you can tell us what you saw about this house when you bought it and what the potential is here, right? Coming at it I guess from a a broker standpoint, but also a developer mindset. So when I walk into a house, like yeah, we do see the potential of it.
I mean, this was just an 18-wide frame house. We completely gutted Was it two-family that was And it's a two-family. So we basically redo the entire layout. It's stripped down to bare walls and rebuilt from scratch from the basement up. So this was a two-family. Yeah, it's still an existing two-family.
What we're doing, I mean, initially you would have had like your kitchen downstairs leading out to the backyard. Now, because this floor has higher ceiling height, you walk in, you want this to be your living room leading to your kitchen, to a deck in the back and you get all this light coming in. I mean, somebody would want to live in a space like this and have this the main living So you had that vision to re-purpose this.
have to have the vision. We have an architect that helps us to design. Um and we have a construction manager who oversees the entire project. Um I see this almost when it's finished and when we're ready to launch and bring it to market and then I'll do all the pretty stuff, staging. Oh, you'll stage it, too.
Well, we have a company that stages and we work with them. Exactly. And we'll do a nice presentation. So if somebody was wanting to do this not full-time, let's say you had mentioned if somebody wanted to start full-time, they could join a team, they can learn from the mistakes that other people have made.
But what if somebody just wanted to invest money in real estate? Should they do that by buying something like this to live in? Should they you know, just give their money to a real estate fund or you guys to go buy them deals? We can find a deal. We can customize the house for them. They can live in it.
They can rent it out. We can help with the entire process. You can pretty much do anything. Okay. Realize here the agents can help you do everything from top to bottom. And bail and that's amazing. uh going back to your last question, you know, I listen, like funds are fee-based, right? So like it's if the fund does really well, it can it can offset, but I'm you know, you you're you're paying into something that immediately has fees.
What's great about brokerage and about selling property is that there are only fees involved when it's a success. Right. You don't pay a brokerage fee if it doesn't sell. Now, if it doesn't sell, that's also not good, um but it's You go to plan B, you rent it. other options. And you have a management team in house for property management.
That's good. I mean, we don't uh do a significant amount of it, but for things like this and for individual properties, we can handle everything. But I think if someone's looking to start investing in real estate, you can either find something that's a simple just rental income producing property, find an apartment that's small that or a house that's small and be able to put tenants in place.
Just make sure that you're you're buying under your means. A lot of people see under their means like, oh, this sucks and then they want to buy the place with the pool and the two-car garage and they'll and it's just hard That's why they never buy. down, right? Exactly. Or they never No, they just never do.
Yeah, exactly. Um and so Do you struggle with that with buyers here as well? Because I'm sure you Yeah, well, I mean, that you get in every price range, right? But people that come to you and might say, look, I'm a first-time home buyer, help me out. Like where do you start? How do you overcome their challenges, especially where the median home price is what, 999 in New York now?
Yeah. Um I mean, the first thing I do with every buyer is I sit them down in my office or in their office. I never like to meet people on the street or in a house or in an appointment. I treat it very much the business, kind of like an investment bank, right? Just like you would your money manager. You sit down and you talk to them about this expectations.
That way they know that I'm in control and I'm driving the ship here, not them. And this isn't just that? Because some people worry that you know, people have this impression that agents might be in high pressure and just want to close a deal. How do you balance providing that education while also saying, "Hey, I'm driving the boat." Just it's just about how you create that relationship.
It's like anything, right? It's like a date, going on your first date. Like how do you balance the boat on the first date? Yeah, exactly. Like this is how this is going to work. This is how we're dating, okay? Yeah, so you don't do it that way, but it just comes down to the conversation, the questions you ask, it's getting to know them.
And really honestly, it's so that you don't waste future time. Cuz so many people say, "Real estate, I want to invest in real estate. I want to do this. I'll call Ryan. I'll call Sarah. I'll do this." And then you realize they have no money or everything's with their parents and it's all locked up or they have terrible credit or they don't know what they're doing or they're planning on renting it out, but they've never done that before and they're eventually going to move to California.
Like everyone has so many issues they've never even thought about. So you ask them all those questions and you explain to them that investing in real estate is a process of elimination. Nothing else. It's not shopping, it's a process of elimination. It sounds like you've done this before. Yeah, a few times.
That's awesome. Okay, so now I've got another question for you. You've got you know, competitors at least more in LA. We see a lot of the Redfin's, Purplebricks, the discount services. Here I don't know Compass that well, but you've got Compass. I don't know if they're what they're doing. discount brokerage.
They're just a real estate brokerage. Just another brokerage. Okay, so how do you deal with that competition and and what is Nest Seekers? I mean we we so far haven't had much of the discount brokerage competition because the brokerage industry here is so intense and so cutthroat that like honestly the brokerage business is is relatively so large that like if anyone were to list with one of those discount brokerages, all the good brokers who have all the real clients who have actual money, who aren't scammers or con artists in New York City Right.
aren't going to go there. Oh, wow, really? Like I would be too nervous to bring my buyer to somebody who listed with Redfin because I all it says to me is this person is cheap. They're trying to skimp out on paying brokerage fees, which means that there's probably something wrong with that house. Ah.
Right? They're cutting corners elsewhere on the property. corners on the brokerage fees because they don't want to pay a professional, then it means there probably is no insulation in that house or their bathtubs were used for murder. This is fascinating. Remember if a seller is signaling they're a discounter or they're trying to do something on the cheap like sell a property, what does it actually signal for the property's condition itself?
So like that's Now in other areas where you have very very low inventory, then maybe you can get away with it, but in New York anyway, like the brokers are the ones and I'm biased obviously, but I see it every day. The brokers are the ones who get the deals done. Right. Like we're the ones who at 11:00 p.m.
are running up to an apartment to take photos of all the light fixtures because literally the deal will die if I don't get those photos in by end of the day midnight because that's what the buyer said to the attorney and they really really mean it. Like no Redfin or Purplebricks broker is going to do that for $4.
Sure. So like you know, New York is what it is because it is an incentivized city and when you incentivize people, you create a a get up and go atmosphere and that's what the United States at the end of the day is all about, right? Sure. That's why Get up and go. Make it happen. Right? You can stay and you can deal with the church or you can get the up and go.
That's amazing. So question for you. I mean this comes up. I'm sure you you get this question. You know, how how would you have started differently if it wasn't for Million Dollar Listing? I mean I did start before that and I was just renting apartments in Koreatown, posting ads on Craigslist and taking buyers to in Koreatown?
Cuz I lived there, you know. How did How did you acclimate? Like how did you go into Koreatown and like I'm going to sell here? Koreatown is one block, so it's not that big in New York. I don't know anything about New York. Okay. Yeah, Koreatown is uh it's like 38th and 31st Street. It sounds like a town.
Okay, okay, okay. So it's one street. Okay, that's where you live. street and that was where the cheapest apartments were at the time. So that's where you decided to go. 38 West 31st Street and yeah, I lived in a tiny tiny little apartment. You sorted Craigslist by cheapest and rented there. Yeah, basically.
So what I had my own apartment for like a thousand bucks a month and that's what I could afford. Yeah, yeah. And I wanted to be by every single train because I knew in real estate I had to be up and down the city all day long. You knew you were going to do real estate at that point. Yeah, kind of, yeah.
And before that when I wasn't doing real estate I lived in the Upper East Side, but then it's just it's too hard to get to the six train and get up and get down all the time. But Million Dollar Listing was a total fluke that happened in 2010 two years later. That was just Two years into you doing rentals.
Yeah, rentals and some sales in the financial district in Long Island City where I could find buyers on Craigslist and in Starbucks. Wow. That's literally I didn't know anyone here. I think like most people unless you're from here and then you're lucky. Like most people come to New York City, they don't know anyone.
They build up their client base from the ground up. Now somebody were going to do that, exactly what you said minus the Million Dollar Listing. How likely would it be for them to ever land something like a $15 million Upper West Side listing? Yeah, do it in the first year, but it is likely. Like listen, I get pushed back all the time because people think, "Oh, you're just on TV or you're just too busy or it's just going to be your team." So someone that doesn't have the television shows won't have to deal with any of that, right?
You just slowly work your way up. I think the biggest issue people have is they say, "All right, I got my license. Where's my $10 million listing? Right. I don't get it. I quit." It's the impatience so much. why I think like 85% of new agents quit in the first year in this business. 100%. The fall through rate is horrible.
Yes. But if you can stick through with it and you slowly just build on your referral base and on your success rate, you start with $2,000 a month apartments in New York City anyway. That's where I started. Yeah. You don't need a resume for that. selling twice as expensive as what you were renting. Yes.
Yeah. Exactly. So you look, that's how you get up the ladder, right? You start From there then I they would know someone that could afford 2,500 and then that person would know someone they could afford 3,200. Then that person could you know, knew someone they could afford 5,000. And then from there I met somebody who needed to sell their apartment for like 300 grand.
And then slowly slowly slowly slowly slowly because success begets success. Right. But it wasn't just $2,000 a month apartment Wasn't overnight. Yeah, I've been doing this now since 10 years. So it's uh it takes a little while. Do you ever see investing in real estate, doing projects like this uh replacing your income from running a team in sales?
I don't know. Um it a lot of people do that. Like there's a lot of brokers who just end end up doing just property Just investing. Yeah. Um when you get to a certain point. What I like, I don't know. I like the deals. I like the deals. I like the transactions. Yeah, I like the process, the marketing.
That's what I think I'm best at. I don't think I'm best at like doing stuff like this. The renovations, so you have a renovation team and you let them handle it then. I I don't, but if I did, I would definitely let them handle it. Okay. So you don't do uh these Uh personally. Well we have one townhouse that we're doing in Boerum Hill right now that will be great, but no, not really.
Okay, so here's a better question. Where are you putting the money? In my sock drawer. That's what I figured. It's all gold coins. You're a bitcoiner, aren't you? No, absolutely not. Okay. No way. So are you throwing it back into real estate like and there. I will buy into new development condominium projects that we do.
First phase of construction and there, yeah. So we get our apartments and then just hold, right? The whole idea with New York anyway and kind of with anywhere is you buy and hold. Sure. Just buy and hold buy and hold buy and hold. And any you know, the problem is and I'm like a a victim to myself on this too, everything is always the most expensive it is ever been.
Always. Like even if you're buying stuff and you'll see this, you're like, "No way will I make money on this." But you have to remember that every day everything is always the most expensive it's ever been. And if it's not, then that's awesome. Maybe you should buy, but like in 10 years from now everything will be more expensive and on that day it'll be more expensive than it's ever been.
So like that's just the way the world works. You can't freak out because we deal with buyers all the time who are like, "No, I can't buy. I'll never make money. It's at the peak. It's going to crash. Exactly. And you just have to remember like in New York, what we tell people all the time is like we literally pull up a a map and you show New York what it was like at the beginning and like New York was a farm.
Like this is all a farm, so That's part of that first meeting with Ryan. Now we chat about the changing marketplace in New York City and the economy. Because you have a lot of sellers saying, "You know what? If I was on the offense before, now I'm just going to move to Florida. Like what's the point?
Why would I pay that They're not rebuying here. Yeah, exactly. Or they're just deciding to sell. You know, I think definitely for the high end, one of the issues we've had in the last two years is that the foreign buyer has become far more scarce than they've ever been before and the foreign buyer is to us what day traders, you know, and hedge funds are to equity markets cuz they provide the liquidity.
Like foreign buyers can come in and they can soak up that inventory and take it away from the domestic buyers who then say, "Oh shoot, everything's selling so fast." When those people disappear, then the domestic buyer comes in and says, "That apartment is still available for sale? I'm going to wait.
Something's wrong here." Something's wrong. Let's wait. Let's wait for the market to correct again. You've got Listen, you have sanctions across the board. You have Tell me about this. controls in China. You've got Oh, you mean between Russia saying, "Everyone bring your money back to this country or else." Like you've got And you've got a really really strong dollar in the United States right now, too, which plays a big role into to just clear currency exchange.
So um that's a everything's been an issue. But it'll all be okay. So well, let me ask you this. What you know, you've got people saying the market's going to get destroyed. Currencies like the dollar are going to become worthless. I'm sure you deal with people like that who are hedging with gold, you know, and and Gold and real estate.
Yeah, oh and real estate. So people you think here or at least maybe you're seeing people are People are putting their funds here, too, into real estate as an asset to protect from that potential? And then you have the This would be like the master suite. Okay, so it'd be the big master bedroom with double closets here.
And you guys staged it. Yeah, staged. Yes, yes. We're the HardieBacker. Yeah, all the drywall is HardieBacker. That's excellent. We put a skylight in the master here in the bathroom, which would be nice. What do you mean? It's right there. Yeah, so you get some actual light that comes through. Um I will say though Yeah.
What are we missing? The market changes every day, right? And so it's up to us as the sales people to just make sure that we are flexible and that we ebb and flow. So, you know, in 2010, right, in 2011, we were in the middle of the Great Recession. Right. I would No one That's when you were starting.
Yeah, I started in 2008. Yeah, in 2008. So, no one was doing anything. Everyone was stalled. And then, a Russian guy shows up, okay, drops $88 million on apartment on Central Park West in 2011. Yeah. All of New York says, "Wait, wait, wait. Aren't we in the Great Recession? This is a recession. What What's that?
Screw that guy." And immediately, the market came back in like 5 days. After that purchase After that purchase, the market came back. The next week because everyone said, "Shit, fear of missing out." So, all the markets came back right away. And then, everything gets soaked up. Everyone spends their money.
And then, the stock market starts to come back. Right? So, then the stock market starts to come back. People feel good about that. They start putting their money in the stock market. Housing starts to slow down again because people aren't so frantic. And then, because the stock market's going too strong, like it has been over the last couple years, we then start to have a FOMO for the stock market because it's easier than real estate.
So, then people say, "Why am I going to take money out of the market and put it into real estate if I actually just don't have to touch it?" And then, what happens in fourth quarter of last year, the stock market then has a heart attack. So, then all of a sudden, everything stops again, which is what happens.
People freak out. They go under the covers. They sit in bed. And they say, "Oh my god, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I'm so afraid. I'm so afraid." And then, exactly what we thought was going to happen happened at the beginning of this January 2019. Everyone said, "You know what?
Stock market's a little too volatile. We should put our money back in real estate." And it's been busier than ever before. It's because people are like just such stupid cows and they just follow each other and they just don't pay attention to anything. They don't take their own advice. Drives me crazy, but it is what it is.
So, you're seeing sort of a Q1 resurgence. We'll get away from this air compressor over here a little bit. So, you're seeing a resurgence Q1. You've got, you know, floorboards that are going away. Oh, tell me about this. So, So, it's three bedroom. And what is it This is How are you building here? Studs in between the bricks?
I mean, I was just talking about the market and now I see this. Not every house. This is also Remember, this is a renovation. So, this is how this house was originally built. Yeah, but that's what's making me so curious is that this wasn't all brick. There's actually lumber in here. Some. Yeah, in some houses, not in every house.
Again, I don't know the history of this house or the background, but that's But then, that's something that you leave, right? We would leave that there. Cuz this is This is an old Oh, you'll just Oh, you won't drywall over this. They I think they're actually going to leave this open because it's kind of cool.
But, in other houses, you'll see that just brick, it's all leave the exposed brick or we'll drywall over it. So, in our renovations that we do in Brooklyn, we try to leave some character to it. It's not like it's like, you know, the village or something where you have to make it super sexy cool all glass.
Well, you see the water towers still even in the Upper West Side. Yeah, people love them even if they don't work. Yeah. Well, most of them are are landmarked. So, you can't take them down. Okay, so they're protected. That's the New York That's the skyline. sky scape. Yeah. And then, snow sits on them for the one time every 3 years it actually snows in the city.
And uh, you know, Well, so now, let's say if you were uh and and we've touched on, you know, joining the team, getting the experience, not making mistakes. But, let's say you were starting today and you were I don't know, maybe you were 16, 18 today. And uh you were thinking, you know, real estate seems like a good avenue.
Would you be uh, you know, getting into wholesaling? Uh you didn't necessarily want to be an agent, but you're like, "I want to I want to invest." Like would How do you respond to those kind of investment strategies? Honestly, you have to start in the mail room. Like, I I If you can jump start that, if you can skip it, good for you.
But, it's always hard for me to give people advice to skip training and skip school. So, that's why I say, like, if you want to get into the business of real estate, no matter what it is, right, you're either going to work for somebody else or become a real estate agent. It costs you a couple hundred bucks.
Click around. It's important. And anything that you want to develop and sell, you want to flip, you want to be a developer, you are only going to make money if it sells. And the person who sells it is going to be a real estate agent. So, you need to know how that works. You need to understand how sales works, what the sales psychology is, how markets trend before you ever pick up a hammer or have someone else pick up a hammer.
Right? That's like the most important thing. Put yourself through real estate or sales grad school before you ever run any risk of capital. Like, it's Those And people People Everyone watching this is going to ignore that advice. They're all going to go get burned and go get a jobs as accountants and then they're eventually just going to die.
One of the biggest things is the psychology of working with vendors and your circles. I bring that up here with Ryan. And then, they don't hold any real estate because they got burned one time and don't want to get in and don't want to learn the right way. Well, what's so interesting Yeah, I guess that's why leaves opportunities like renovations like this or whatever for the people who have the knowledge.
Now, you mentioned a very interesting word that people I don't think value almost at all in real estate, yet it is almost completely what it's all about. Psychology. Tell me a little bit more. Just the psychology of the deal. Like, how you buy this right. How you renovate this right and work with the general contractors to make sure they're happy, to work with the subs to make sure the city's happy.
And then, how you sell it right, which broker you work with, how you're going to price it, right? The psychology of the deal is probably the number one P to keep in mind. You know, you've got pressure, you've got persistence, you have pricing, but then you have psychology. Um the P's silent. And it's something that you have to have to always focus on.
Otherwise, people are too numbers driven and then they burn themselves. Otherwise, they're too, you know, they're they're I don't know, they're too emotionally driven and then they burn themselves. Right? If you understand the psychology, you can anticipate it. I wrote a whole section about it in my book.
Um then you will be more successful every time. And that's something that's so neat, too, is so many people, they sit and they analyze their spreadsheets in an office or at a computer because that's what they learned how to do maybe in college or something like that. And then, they Are we Are we in your Is that a fine multi-master?
Fine multi-master? It is a fine, German. Very good. So many people Yeah, we'll get out of this So, go out, right? For this That's perfect. So many people forget that what you said, keeping the contractor happy is so important. They do their spreadsheets. They think, "I'm just going to grind, grind, grind." And they forget about the relationship aspect.
Could you talk to that a little bit before hitting that nail there? Right next to the Sawzall, Ryan. You're Yeah, that's all right. How have you not hurt yourself here yet? Okay. I mean, if you are If you're someone who's buying a house to renovate it to flip it, you are you're a manager more than anything.
You're not a real estate developer, okay? Real estate developers are for the most part, that's the contractor. Like, that person is actually doing the work. So, if you want to be a general contractor, that's a totally different video. Totally different conversation. Would you ever do that? Yeah. I did.
I worked as a laborer for many years. So, as a contractor, we did or what did you do? We did framing. We did demo. We did kitchens and baths mostly. So, I did that for 4 years. Um and it was awful. And that really It pushed me every day to not want to lug 80-lb bags of shingles on my shoulders up ladders anymore.
Right? But, it was important for me to do that. Like, I learned how this stuff works. Um and same thing on the sales side. Like, I know how this house gets sold. I know the pitfalls. I know the upsides. Um but, you know, when you're doing a deal like this in any way, shape, or form, you have to remember you are a manager.
You're managing people. Okay? You're not managing real estate. Like, that's so far from away what you're managing. You're managing the people who are going to work on the real estate. So, you're managing the contractors. You're managing the subs. You're managing the city organizations. You're managing the police in the area.
You're managing the neighbors, which is a huge part. Making sure the neighbors are happy because the neighbors can shut you down for months if they want to with one phone call. Right? You're managing the brokers. You're managing your wife or husband. You're managing the bank. You're managing all these people.
So, what you really are is you're a people manager. And like, if you understand the psychology of people so that you can manage those people to do what you need them to do on time for under cost, then you will be profitable. Yeah, how do you balance million-dollar listing, having another broker who's developing this merge with your office and a team to train?
You're putting people through Serhant University, so to speak. And And then, you have a wife and family. Then, you're on social. You're on Instagram. You're on YouTube now. Well, how do you balance this? Um Listen, I have I have a good team. I have a big team. I have a lot of agents. Uh I have a a big admin support staff.
I have a lot of brokers that run around all day long. Um and I leverage, right? My whole business is leverage. That's all it is. How can I be in as many different places at a time so that all I focus on every single day is what I can do. So, like, I can be here with you, nobody else, right? But, none of my business has to come to a stop because I'm with you the way other people would if they were just one-man shops, if they were just by themselves.
So, I started with myself and one intern, Yolanda, 2009. She's been with me since for 10 years. So, that's, you know, started with us. And then, we went one person by one person by one person. And now, we're like 65 people. 65 people on your team. And that is circles right back to the psychology of managing people, which you've learned through hiring one person at a time and doing it.
And I also learned that it's not about making everybody happy. It's about making me happy. Making sure my team runs the way I want it to run. And it's not going to work for everybody. Sure. You know. If somebody wanted to apply for a job, how would they do that with you? Uh email [email protected].
DM. I don't know. People People find me in the weirdest ways. Buy the book. Read the book. If anyone wants to come on the team, they have to read the book cuz that is my whole life. Now, let's talk about the pros and cons of selling in New York City. Kevin, I'll go first. Yeah. It's just It rains and it's cold.
And in the summer, it's hot, sticky, and muggy. Would you ever move? I You know what, man? No. I have businesses here, but the weather You don't move to New York because you love the weather. If it weren't for your businesses, where would you live? I'd live with you. Why do you think people live there?
It's awesome. The weather Every time I go there it's like the greatest weather ever except this one time and it was like this insane rainstorm and it just like everything like flooded. It was crazy. But then that went away. Oh, you guys also have fire. We don't have a whole lot of fire. Yeah, well your natural disasters are the what are the occasional hurricane and cold, huh?
Yeah, we had a hurricane once. That was bad. Yeah, and like and just disasters due to the people who are there. Oh, sure. But New York is a great place to live and invest and buy and sell real estate. Like what's amazing here as a broker anyway is the volume. Yeah. Is the volume. Like to get this type of property discrepancy between like hey, I want to do a two family in Brooklyn compared to where I just came from half an hour ago where I was showing like a $25 million townhouse in the village.
For you is such a drive with so much traffic. It's so hard for the brokers in Los Angeles or anywhere else really to work on such a varied amount of properties and deal sizes. Whereas here like I can do 500 deals a year and they're all of different sizes with all of different people and I don't have to go that far.
Like that's what makes New York so great. Sure. Right? Wow. Which is why it would be so hard for me to move and sell real estate anywhere else. But good luck. Yeah. Remember to use coupon code short redfin for 20% off the investing course. If you purchase the investing course and if you want the agent course as well, at the end of your checkout you will get a bonus coupon offer for an additional $100 off the agent course making the agent course just $175.
Thanks . I knew that was you the minute I saw a yellow cab on this block. I was like that's definitely someone coming from the city who jumped in a yellow cab and was like thing.
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