Big Money Energy With Ryan Serhant

Foreign.

This is Real Estate Investing Live from New York with James Nelson, the principal and head of Avis and Young's Tri State Investment Sales Group. In this program you'll learn about the world of commercial real estate and find out why it's one of the largest investment opportunities in New York and around the world. Now here is your host, James Nelson.

Welcome to episode number 105 of Real Estate Investing Live from New York. This is your host, James Nelson. I'm principal and head of Tri State Investment Sales for Avison Young. And we've got a special treat for you today. Back with us is my good friend Ryan Sirhant, the legend. He is a real estate broker, CEO and founder of Sirhant, a vertically integrated mega brokerage comprising of in house Film studio Education, our marketing division and technology platform. He's also the best selling author, producer and star of Bravo's Million Dollar Listing. New York and Sell It Like Sirhant. Last year his team sold $1.45 billion of property, ranking them the number one team in sales volume in New York City for 2019 according to the Wall Street Journal. And he is such an inspiration and a mentor to me. I took his course Sell It Like Sirhant. You can hear me talking about my experience with it and the power of branding on an episode we did together a couple weeks ago. And now you're going to hear an interview that I did with him at the Young Men's and Women's Real Estate association luncheon and you're going to hear Ryan's story and his key to success. And I know you're going to get a lot out of it. The people who attended the lunch said that it was one of the best presentations speeches that they've heard in some time. So we had a lot of fun with it. So before we get into the interview, I want to first of all thank you all as always for tuning in. If you have not already, please subscribe to the show, leave a comment Rating that's what help other people find the show and then also check out james nelson.com my newest website that I created for you to give you the insider's edge to real estate investing. There you can also sign up for an exclusive 10 part video series on how to gain that insider's edge to real estate investing. So I've entitled this episode Big Money Energy because that is exactly what Ryan has and what he has embodied. It's also the name of his best selling book. You should check it out if you have not already read it. Along with sell it like Sirhant, we're going to have a brief word from our sponsor and then we're going to get into that interview with Ryan. Thank you.

A different approach to putting our clients first. Avis and Young's Tri State Investment Sales Group sells multifamily office, retail, development and specialty sales throughout the New York metro area. As experienced thought leaders in their industry, our 35 member group is available to help you make informed investment decisions by advising you on your current holdings or identifying new opportunities in the marketplace. Our one unified team is built on an industry unique platform which promotes unparalleled collaboration and and teamwork. We share core values of hard work, integrity and expertise. We put our clients first providing tailor made strategies to achieve superior results. Please Visit us at aytristateinvestmentsales.com and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram amesnelsonnyc to learn more. Let's do it.

Let's do it. Thank you so much for coming and.

Helping us in person.

That's it.

This is weird. Yeah, good.

But you know, Ryan, we gotta, we gotta keep it real because we've known each other for a long time and everyone sees, you know, out there on TV and doing everything you do. But I know also you started with more humble beginnings. I think in your book you even said you used to dress in Shakespearean garb and eat Jell O. And you know, when you showed up to the city, things weren't so great. Right? Flat. Flat, bro. Maxed out. Credit cards. Maybe you know what happened.

This is a great way to start this conversation.

We're going to start very slow and we're going to work our way up.

Okay, good. Good.

Yeah.

I mean, for those of you who don't know me, I'm a residential broker based in New York City. I was born in Texas, bounced around eight times before fourth grade. I really grew up outside Boston. That's where I went to school. My parents made me play every single sport and on demand. I sucked at every single one of them. I was okay in school, but the only thing I was really good at was theater. And after I graduated college, I went to Hamilton in upstate New York. I decided, you know what, before I have responsibility, I want to go to New York City and see if I can do this theater thing before I then have responsibility. And then that would be really hard to do. And so I came to New York and it's really, really hard. It's a hard city to make money in and I ran out of money. Within 2006, I ran out of money the summer of 2008, and I got my real estate license because a friend told me to. And I had a friend from college who was selling apartments at Twenty Pines or Monte Casa. Chpo is the broker in the summer of 2008 over Craigslist. And he had, like, a nice apartment. He had cool suits. He wasn't that smart. I was like, man, if you can do it, anyone can do this.

Right?

New York City real estate has got to be the easiest thing ever. So I got my license, which was relatively pretty simple. And then my first day was September 15, 2008. So Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy that morning. And the benefit for me was I had no money. So, like, I didn't have a stock portfolio. I was watching. Like, I wasn't stressed out about the market. I just thought real estate was then really, really hard. And I just started doing rentals. Craigslist, right? Craigslist Rentals. I'd meet people at Saks Fifth Avenue. I would totally profile everybody. If you had more than two shopping bags, you had money, and then you deserved my card. And. Or you were looking to buy or rent something. And I would look for pregnant women in Starbucks in 49th and Madison. I feel like this is a safe environment for me. Right. Yeah. Listen, if you're in the residential business, it's all about knowing your market. And now when we do buildings, it's all about figuring out who my target market is. But back then, it's like I was looking to do, you know, if I could do a $5,000 a month rental, the commission check would be $5,000. I was a new agent, so it would be 5,000 bucks. I'd split a 50, 50 with the house. It'd be $2,500. My rent was 1,100 bucks. My monthly expenses were $400, give or take. Like, I would be rich. And so pregnant women on the Upper east side in Lululemon pants were always very anxious and really needed extra space. And so those were some of my first clients. Foreigners coming out of Saks Fifth Avenue, people on Craigslist. And then if you were pregnant, I was coming up and asking you if you needed a new apartment. Wow.

Both. So you know what also amazed me was a lot of us first saw you on Million Dollar Listing, and even then, it didn't seem like you were a huge broker. I mean, it seemed like you almost sold your favor. We're rising slowly here, but maybe talk about how you managed to find your.

Way out of that show, Million Dollar Listing did a casting notice in curbed at the time, in the beginning of 2010. So I'd been a broker for like a year and a half and I'd sold a couple apartments, but was kind of trying to figure out what I was going to do. And they put a casting notice out asking for the best agents. I think it was the best real estate agents under the age of 30. And so I just figured that that was me. And I went to an open casting call. 3,000 residential brokers showed up at the Hudson Hotel over a couple days. And then they narrowed it down over 10 months. And I listen, like, if you think about. And we talk about this a lot now, like, your personal brand is not your logo, right? Your personal brand starts with your core identity, so it's who you feel you are inside that then turns into the perception the world has of you. And that perception then turns into your reput reputation, because that's what people say about you behind your back. And then your reputation is your personal brand. And so I knew they were looking for the best real estate agents under 30. And so I just said, I'm the best real estate agent under 30. And I told them that's what I was. And they were from la, and people from LA don't know anything about New York, so they totally bought it. And they followed me around. One day I borrowed a friend's car, a Range Rover. I'd never driven in New York City ever, which was no. But all he told me was like, listen, this is how you drive in New York. Just go. That's what I did. I just went. And they were completely terrified. And I showed an apartment. They got to see kind of what my day was like a little bit. I told every single person I know to call me. I was like, between 8am and noon, just call me. My mom called me like 10 times and didn't understand why I kept hanging up the phone. And then I ran out of things to do with them and so I just left. I kind of freaked out and left because a girl had done that to me once on a date. She just like looked at her phone and said, I'm so sorry, but I have to go. And it wasn't mean. It just made me like, what the fuck? It made me like, you then want her more, right? And so that's what I did to them. And I have learned since that day forward one of the best way to sell anybody is just to walk out the door. And they cast me on that show. A couple months later.

Amazing, amazing. So did then just all blow up because, I mean, maybe talk to the group a little bit about, you know, the community, the social media did it. All of a sudden things went 180 from there.

No, no, no. Then I had a mental. I had a total heart attack because I was renting apartments in Koreatown, where I lived. I had been hired by TF Cornerstone to do my first building, which was 99 John Street. My first piece of PR ever was in Bloomberg. Because we had to figure out how to get people financing in a building that no banks would allow financing in. Because when Tom and Fred, when they bought 99 John initially from AIG and turned it into a rental building, and then decided later to turn it into a condo building, there weren't condo phases. Financing was super easy pre 2008. And then all of a sudden 2008 happened. And so then Fannie and Freddie came in and said, oh, no, this building is now majority investor owned. But it wasn't. It was owned by the developer who was converting. But that process hadn't been worked out yet. And so no one could get financing. So I had to learn how to get PERS approval in Washington D.C. to get FHA financing. And we ended up becoming the first condo project in Manhattan that allowed FHA financing. And so we were able to do deals at 3.5 and 5% down. And then when we lost that, then I convinced TF to do sponsor financing at like 5 year notes with a balloon. And so that got me like initial press. And I was 25 at the time, just winging it, trying to figure it out. And so we filmed that whole first season while I was a sales director there, running around trying to show apartments at the same exact time. But the first season didn't come out until the beginning of 2012. And when it came out, I waited for the phone to ring and no one cared.

It's New York.

But it wasn't just New York. I was like, okay, so I'm gonna be on tv, everyone's gonna call. No one calls who they see on tv. You know, like, it's just not something you do. And so it took a long time for people to then be more comfortable. But what I knew it did is it gave me something else to say on the phone. So kind of the same thing I would say to people in Starbucks or outside Saks, because our office was on 49th and Madison. It gave me that other hook to go to people with and say, oh, also there's this thing Whether you cared about it or not, it was a way for me to kind of get into the door. And the biggest role it played was in new development because developers, I found, really had a lot of product to sell, especially at that time. And they wanted the exposure for the product and they wanted exposure for themselves because then they could go around and raise money because they'd be sitting with guys and say, oh, didn't you have that thing? I saw that thing on tv. And it would help them raise money for more projects, which is why you see so much new development on the show now. Yeah.

So I'm going to give you. We started by exposing some of the early years. I want to give you a big compliment because to your point about it's not just Hollywood and it sells and everything happens. When we first met through a mutual developer client, you know, you were already out there and super busy. But no, no, Ryan is available. He always shows up and he delivers, period. And that's, you know, we've known each other for how long? And that is always the case. When you say you're going to do something, you're here, you follow through. I don't know how you do it, how you pack so much stuff in the day, but I mean, I will.

Not to cut you off, but I will say, like my dad taught me one thing, which is when you decide you want to be an adult and a professional, you make decisions based on your commitments. Everyone else, amateurs, everybody makes decisions based on how they feel. So if I make a decision that I'm going to see you at 1 o', clock or if I'm going to book out my calendar or if I'm going to wake up tomorrow at 4 to hit the gym if I'm busy or I'm tired and then I cancel or reschedule, I am now an amateur and according to my dad, which is burned into my skull, I'm still a little kid or I can be an adult and buck up and do what I say I'm going to do. So I require that of myself and every single person who works for me. And I have a one strike policy. If you make an appointment and you do not make it based on how you feel or you were lazy or you were tired or something else, there are a lot of other real estate brokerages that you can work for, but not mine.

Love it.

Yeah.

So talk a little bit about big Money energy. The latest book, you all have to check it out.

Thanks.

What does that mean? And a little bit of a sales pitch. There why not? Not that you need my help, but talk about that book and how you embodied that and how that helped propel your career.

Sure. So I wrote my first book, Sell It Like Sirhant, which kind of turned into so I worked for a firm called Net Seekers for a long time. I don't know if anyone here has ever heard of it. Probably not, but it's still there even since I've left. And I was there for 12 years. But I had to do everything by myself. No resources, no help, nothing. And so I had to figure out everything. How to sell, how to do. There's no training, no nothing. And so I created what I called an agent bible. And that eventually turned into Sell It Like Sirhant, which was the first book which turned into the television show on Bravo. Sell It Like Sirhant and then turned into the sales course, Sell It Like Sirhant. That now I think we're just about 10,000 members in 110 countries. And we started that two years ago. But anyway, so that book really opened me up to a whole host of salespeople around the world. And then Covid hit last year, and then I'm not the kind of person that can just sit and do nothing. And so it's like, this is a great time to write this second book, which is really Sell It Like Sturgeon was kind of the tool. So for anyone getting into real estate, both commercial or residential, like anything you need to know about how to build a sales career, right? And it's not the individual facts per cities or how to comp. It's none of that stuff. This is how you really structure your life so that you can sell anything, so that you can build this limitless livelihood. And it was very much all the tools. And then big money energy was the idea that I always had of like, what I call successful people back when I had no money, when I would go to an event like this and be totally stressed out that everyone has suits that were tailored and mine was not, and I only had one. And I would see people walk into a room and just feel like they owned it. It's like that person has amazing energy, and that person has big money energy. And it was a bit of like, I lived in a 200 square foot apartment at 38 West 31st street, apartment 1100. Like it's still there. And I had to kind of embody that. When I had my first sales clients and the first one I ever had, where it really kind of clicked for me is I had a woman named June Shen from China call me on the phone at the office randomly, because she saw an ad that I had put up for an apartment that definitely didn't exist. And she said she was looking for an investment apartment for her daughter. And I asked her how old her daughter was and she said, oh, well, I'm pregnant. I was like, that is super forward thinking. And she worked in oil and gas and she was flying to New York and just wanted an investment property. And this was 2009. And my gut instinct, because she told me her budget was a couple million and I had done deals that were like a couple thousand, was to initially refer it out. I wouldn't know what to do with her. What do I do? I don't know. She's never going to trust me. Who am I? I barely. I haven't even really committed to being in this business yet. And then I just sort of looked around my office and the guy that got me into it, it's like, wait a minute, I can do this. If I tell her I'm the greatest real estate broker in the history of the known universe, if I believe that, then it will be true. And maybe it's not true tomorrow, but it will eventually be true the more I manifest it, right? And I looked around at everybody else that was successful in selling. The only difference, other than the fact that I'm not Jewish and didn't grow up on the Upper east side, was that they just knew more, right? They were able to call upon their experience, the places they'd been, the deals they'd done. It's like, okay, so I can memorize all of that. And so where the theater training came in is I used to have to memorize books. And so I spent the entire week waiting for her to show up and just memorizing every block, every street, every building unit count, architect, developer who lived in the building, what units closed. I would go into every coffee shop. So she wanted to be on the west side. So I did this from 51st to 71st west of 9th, basically so that just in case she was hungry or thirsty, I could walk into a shop or something and say, hey, Bob. And Bob would say, hey, Ryan, because he met me yesterday. But to June. I've been there a lot, and it worked. And she bought apartment 21L at 80 Riverside Boulevard, an ex tel building, the Rushmore, for $2.1 million. We negotiated the St. Regis Hotel at 2:35 in the morning. And I had to go get her McDonald's and fries because here it tastes way better than it does in Shenzhen. And walking out of that deal, after all the splits and everything, my commission check was just over $24,000, and that was two years of rent. And I was like, all right, cushion. Everyone in the world is June Shen to me now, and all I have to do is go meet them. And if we talk about future you all the time. And that goes back to million dollar listing, too. The best piece of advice I got for a million dollar listing was like, Rubenstein pr, if anyone ever worked with them. So Richard Rubenstein told me, he's like, listen, go hard and don't film anything that you don't want more of. So basically meaning, like, don't put anything on camera that you don't want people watching in a year that you want to be known for one year from today. And it completely changed the way I think about business and career and life that you want to put yourself out there living in the future versus just the way you're living today. And so that initial season was then like Ken nahum's penthouse at 95 Green street that I got for cold calling over and over and over because I saw it in the New York Post because he was getting sued by his condo board. And my pitch to him was, let's put your apartment on the market and let's put it on TV as a total F you to everyone in your board. And he said, yes. I was like, great. And that was my first $20 million listing that also didn't sell. And then it just kind of went from there. And then Instagram came out in 2013. I don't think I got on it until 2014. And that really is where things kind of changed because it became a visual medium for creating a passive audience. And then passive leads and then video and everything started in 2016. And then the vlog and the rest of that kind of started in 2017. Course in 18. And then I blew up my whole life and started my own thing last year.

Yes. And I want to get to that shortly. But before we do, I do want to talk about the course because I'm also a proud member. When I heard you were doing this, I signed up for the pro membership right away. And as you said, it works.

James is the best student, by the way. The best always does his homework. Does his homework.

But no, you gave a real plan. You've got this incredible team that gave a marketing plan, plan of how to get out there. So we've got a lot of young members in the group who are looking to get out there and do it in the right way. Maybe talk a little bit about how you create that personal brand and how you advise people to get out there.

Yeah, sure. So, I mean, what James is talking about is we have a whole platform where salespeople all around the world can, one, learn how to sell, two, do referral deals with agents literally around the world, and three, learn how to build a personal brand. So everything I figured out on how to do on my own, that team is here and then works with you and works with everybody else who's part of the program. And it's really a three step process. So first is kind of like I was saying, it's really figuring out what your core identity is, which you'd be surprised. People have a really hard time figuring out and doing a real audit to understand what people know you as and what people should know you as and kind of coming up with that. And like, I am real estate and like, what, what is that? And some people think it's I'm real estate and luxury, but it's not. It's your real estate and a bike, because everybody knows you because you ride a bike to every appointment. Or I'm real estate and my kids, or I'm real estate and cooking, whatever it might be. And then you take that and you start to create consistent content. And there's a whole plan for it that we go through and we walk everybody through kind of how to create the brand strategy, how to create the content, the platforms you need to be on the way to really maximize the system and use the system against itself to our benefit. So you can start generating not just awareness in your marketplace, but awareness in the global marketplace and start generating like, real business from it. Because people want to work with people who are successful and they want to work with people who are also confident in their own business. And then once you figure out how to do that, then it's about what we say, shouting it from the mountaintop right over and over, and not being shy about your successes and your wins and being humble about your client successes, but really making sure that people know the deals you do, the listings you have, the places you go. Even if you don't have any business, anyone in here could still come to one of your many buildings and walk through, put it on Instagram and they just walk through $100 million development opportunity. And somebody sees that and they know them from that. You know, like it's. We're listing the listing for the penthouse at 432 Park Avenue right now, right for $169 million. I got that because a couple years ago I flew to Colorado and the founder of the Discovery Channel built this stupid ranch and put it on the market. Stupid, in a cool way, put it on the market for $280 million. So I went and did a property tour. We put it on our channel, YouTube. And one of the ways that I really get to my client base, but would be different for everybody here is I target directly wealthy children and go after wealthy kids. So if you're a Saudi prince and you have wealthy kids, they're not on Abu Dhabi's TV channel, they're all on YouTube. So we target them directly. And that was watched by members of the royal family. They got in touch and asked about that and a couple other things, and years later turned into the owner of that apartment, who's a Saudi Arabian retail guy. And I was the go to choice for how do you sell something of that magnitude that needs to have global reach? And so it's like, you think about it, it's like, well, why would I go all the way to Colorado to do that? Is it really going to do anything? But in the future, it always turns into something else. So anyway, so that all goes into kind of that brand awareness, and it's part of the process and part of the program. And then we have three brand specialists amongst a lot of other people who work with all the people in the program and really helping them figure out, okay, so you do commercial retail leasing. You still need to have a brand, you still need to have strategy. You still want to have as many landlords and possible tenants know you as possible. This is Global Marketplace. If that new juice company that's based in Sydney wants to come to New York, you want them coming to you and not going to that other guy that they know from their attorney.

Right.

It's all the same. And that's what it is.

Makes a lot of sense.

Is that a good. You're in it.

So talk about how you took all these principles and you brought them to your new firm and remind me of the timing. Was this already in the works before COVID This happened during COVID I mean, I'm sure you must have had kind of an oh, shit moment at some point, right? Or no?

Yeah, April 7th for sure was an oh, shit moment. So my brokers were Caleb Peterson, who was at rkf, who then went to Newmark when that whole thing happened. And then Ben Shapiro of Newmark. I don't know how they dealt with me. I was by Far the worst client they've ever had in their life. And they will probably tell you the same thing. But at the end of 2019, I made the decision, like, you know what? Where else do I go from here? The next step is going to be to do my own thing and kind of take everything that I was doing between the production company and the training platform and all, really kind of like, bring it together. And the way we market and the way we sell is just very different. And I interviewed with everybody. I sat with Lorber and Pam and Refken and the Zeckendorfs. I sat with everybody. And it just no place really understood what it meant to sell the way we sell in 2019, 2020, 2021. And I'm very focused on how we're going to be selling real estate to people in 2030, whether it's also through video, whether it's on the blockchain, however we're going to be doing it, we got to put those pieces into motion today versus traditional, which is once it becomes safe, then we're going to backtrack and figure it out. And I think life is too short to do it that way. And so I really blame every other residential brokerage in this city for forcing me to start my own thing last year. And when they call me for taking their agents, I say it to them and just say, listen, I'm sorry, but this is totally your fault. I met with you and you did not have good answers to my questions. And that way I can kind of take the heat off me and put it right back on them. And so then it was the beginning of the year and I made the decision and we started looking for office space. And I was trying to find a space that was going to be comfortable, but also could allow co working and things. And I found a place on Green street and had kind of worked out a deal. And it was super expensive. It's like, nope, I'm doing this. This is what I'm doing. And then Covid hit and everything got shut down and that deal totally fell apart. And I had one day, April 7, where I remember saying, you know what? I'm not going to do this. Like, everybody told me, do not do it. Just wait. Everyone was furloughing people, firing people. Just no one in their right mind is making a move into New York right now. So just take a step back. And then on April 8, I woke up and we were quarantining in New Hampshire in the woods. And I was like, you know what? Everything's going to be fine at the end of the day. So why don't I just definitely do this now? Because no one else is going to do it, and I'll be able to make the biggest splash possible versus when everything's great, then, like, sure, I'm going to start my own company and no one's going to care. Like, all I'm doing is fighting for attention all day long, whether it's pitching for listings or trying to meet buyers or starting my own thing. So we push forward. We built the whole brand, everything, all the pillars. We built out 10 steps for it. We did it through zoom. And then I came back to New York on August 20th. The best part was that all the offices were shut down. And so at 594 Broadway, you know, there's 150 offices in that building and they're all empty. And I'm the only person going to the office every day, so everyone's at home. And so I got my core team to show up at the office every day, and we went into another office that wasn't ours, used all their furniture, put all the pieces of paper up on the wall. They didn't care. They weren't there. And really figured out how we were going to do this. It's fine. The door was open, you know. Exactly.

We need more offices to good use right now.

Right, Exactly. If they weren't going to use it, someone had to use it. And so we built it. And I thought I was going to announce on July 1, but then the separation got complicated, so I had to figure that out. And then we took the summer to really kind of do this. And I separated from Netseekers in a really unique way, which residential brokerage has never done before. Maybe not in commercial, but you can have dual licensure in the city, which I didn't know because we never do. Like, brokers hop around, they. They lose everything. They leave everything behind, and the other firm has to make it all up. And it's this whole thing, it's like, listen, I'm going to start my own thing. So anything that I've signed up until July 1st, that'll be nest Seekers and I'll stay with my license at Nest Seekers and we'll finish it out same way. So you're not going to be hurt. It's going to be fine. And then everything after July 1st is going to be me on my own, under my own little name and little thing that I'm going to do. Don't worry, it's not going to be big and that's what we agreed upon and that worked. So if you look around like I've got a bunch of buildings and still a lot of listings, there's still Ryan Sirhan and Nest Seekers, but then everything else is Sirhant. And so we put it together and then I wanted to announce on my 12 year anniversary. So I got in the business in 2008 and September. September 15th. So on September 15th, 2020, because no one else was starting businesses, I got the Wall Street Journal to give us the announcement on the front page. I hired a skywriter airplane to write the name over Central park. But they wrote it like sideways so people thought it was like this crazy weird message and we were freaking out. So I don't really take credit for that one. A whole lot in public. I was in the super. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, man. Life is too short to be boring. Plus I'm a residential broker, right. I don't have serious sit down lunches in the middle of a Wednesday like this or Tuesday. And so yeah, we announced that day. And it took Department of State a couple weeks to approve us. So it became legal on October 1st. We had a small little building in Tribeca that I was leasing. And then we found the Tommy Hilfiger Building at 372 West Broadway. We leased that at the end of the year. We just finished it out and we actually today's the opening day for clients and everybody. And so we'll have our party there tonight. And it's crazy. And so we'll have a house. That's what we have. We don't have desks for anybody. The whole office is. The company's completely virtual, totally built in the cloud. Agents could sell anywhere to anyone on any device. It's super crazy and I'm still trying to understand it, but I have good people around me who totally understand it. And the building is a networking hub. So agents come in, they do board packages, applications during the day. They have meetings all day long. And then at night it's right next to Cipriani and it turns into a secondary place to meet clients, do deals. A great place to do sales. And all our departments and everybody are there. And it's been a year and so far so good.

Amazing.

Yeah.

Already 65 agents and 43 staff.

Yeah, I'm a little bit. The agents are about 65, but the staff are pure, are total payroll. And so I remember every single person. Yeah, like Austin is, you know, he's on our studios team. He's great, but you know, he's just a number to me at this point. Just kidding. Just kidding.

So. And you mentioned that you met with Robert Refkin and have you been watching kind of noticing with Compass?

Yeah. It's awesome.

Are you.

Yeah, it's great.

What happens to your company? What happens in 2030?

That's a good question, James. You know, like, I'm a champion of everyone's success. I was so excited for that ipo. That was the greatest thing ever. I never. It made no sense, but it made all the sense in the world, you know, and there's so much excitement around real estate right now. I've actually never done. Until Covid. I don't think I've ever done a real estate transaction with someone who wanted to buy something. From 2008 until last year, I mean, every residential deal was literally painful and was with somebody who needed to buy an apartment. Like, they were either having a baby or they were moving from work or they had to move for school, and everybody wanted a deal. Right? Like, it's. Everything was always really, really difficult. Now we get to sell apartments and houses to people who want them and need them, and it's super exciting. And one of our first deals as a new company was I met a guy who wanted to rent a place on the Upper east side. And I'm like, all right, I have a new firm. I guess I have to do rentals again. But he had a good budget. And then I was just talking to him, and New York City didn't make a whole lot of sense. Then we started talking about Florida, and I was like, listen, we should do Palm Beach. And he's like, do you do Palm Beach? And I said, yes. And so the next night, I memorized everything about Palm Beach. I knew absolutely everything. We flew down the next morning, and I sold him 535 North County Road for just under 140 million. And it was the second most expensive U.S. home sold in the history of ever, and the most expensive home ever sold in Florida and probably will be for quite some time.

Can we. Can you drop this little mic now? Is that we need, like, a big mic to just, like, crash on the floor for that. I did want to ask you about Florida, though, because, you know, Florida's great.

Florida is the best market for me for now.

We're all still here. And the question is, I mean, you're watching the ultra high net worth out there, and it's been a little shaky here, our political environment, and you do see a lot of flight capital. So how real is it that are People leaving New York in droves. Are they saying, hey, we're going to Florida, we're gonna spend 181 days a year there. What are you seeing? Because you've got the pulse, dude.

People made so much money from 2009 to 2020, and they just didn't put it into opportunistic real estate. They put it everywhere else, or they mostly sat on it. And what Covid did was really accelerate a need and then therefore a want for residential real estate in a way that we haven't seen since 2007, pre my time. And it all happened in a moment's notice. And so the initial burst that we saw in South Florida was a pure tax burst play, right? If I don't have to go to the office at 9 West 57th street, then I can live in Palm Beach. And if I make a lot of money, then I'm going to take that 15% tax savings, I'm going to buy myself a kick ass beach house. And that's what a lot of people did. Because if you're doing just as much business, if not more through zoom or teams or everything else, you don't have to be in New York, you'd be anywhere. And Palm Beach Country Day is fine. And so we saw a lot of that. Now we're starting to see their workers come, so people that don't want to be out of sight and out of mind. So now we're starting to do all the one to $10 million deals for all those people who are saying, well, my boss moved down, the guys that have worked at all the funds. But the office construction down there between Brickell Design District, all the way up through Fort Lauderdale, Boca, West Point, Palm is all cranes is just completely insane. But more people moved to New York City in the last year than left New York City. And we're doing deals left and right with both New Yorkers and domestic, but also totally, virtually like we sent out, we sent out I think 60 million in contracts yesterday on apartments purely to people that are buying through video. And none of them live in New York City, but they are all domestic. And a lot of them are coming out of California because we think New York's tough, right? We're like de Blasio, get out. The homelessness, the crime, it's dirty. How can we stand it? But have you been to San Francisco? Have you been to Portland? The political environment in California is a tricky, tricky one. And so there's a lot of money coming out of California now and coming here. So it's always ebbing and flowing. If it's not Californians coming here, it's going to be the Asian community who's going to come back, right? If it's not them, it's going to be Europeans. If it's not them, it's going to be somebody else. There's nothing like this rock in this island. And there's only so much to go around, which is why you've seen more contracts get signed in the residential market every single week since January 1st than any week in the history of ever. It's nuts. Completely insane.

And still I forget what the stat is. I think if you look at who's actually in the offices right now, if it's 25 or 30%, they're actually there. So most people, I mean, we're all here, we're all working in the office, but you have a lot of people who are virtual doing one or two days a week. And yet I was speaking to some of our new applicants before the lunch, and they said they can't find an apartment.

And the rents, the rents are gone.

More expensive than pre Covid. So what's driving that again, if they don't have to? Most of these jobs are still pushing off. Why is everyone coming back now?

Because they still like the city. And like you, you have a yard where you live, like, you had to, like, mow a lawn, and you got to go to Olive Garden. And like, it's, you know, it's like, you know, you try to take your wife out of New York City. It works for a short period of time, but man, oh, man. And so people have now started to come back, and there's nothing like the energy here and the buzz here and New York City all always comes back. And I sat down with Barbara Corcoran in November, and she told me she sold her company like, the day before she signed that contract before 9, 11. And then I guess 10 days later had a meeting with all of her agents at the Pierre. Everyone's crying, and it's condolences and it's tough. And she told them, and she was like, you better tell your agents the same thing. It's going to happen again. She's like, hold each other. We're all going to get through this. But just keep in mind the New York City market is about to come back greater than it ever has ever before. Because on every TV around the entire globe is one thing, and that's New York City. And the same thing happened last year and has happened for now a long time. New York City was the epicenter, and so the deal flow is still there, and people still like the city. People now can just afford to have multiple houses. And so I'm super excited about the trajectory of where we're going. And the best time to buy was definitely last year. The deals we were doing last year were completely covered in blood, and now they're just not anymore. And then the rental market is like. I've never seen a turnaround that fast. I rented my apartment in an hour. Insane. Completely crazy. We took 11 green, a rental building, and Green and Canal. We had pro forma that. It's like, this is gonna. It was $10,000 a month per bedroom. Super expensive. Like, this is gonna take me a year to lease up 33 apartments. We rented the whole thing in, like, 40 days. We had to do price increases. It's crazy. We have a new building right now in Williamsburg, 510 Driggs. We send out, like, two contracts a day on the sales side, Brooklyn Point with xtel, which was my first new development with the new firm. And I give Gary a lot of credit for calling me and saying, hey, you're doing this thing. I want to be your first project. Right? And then he gave a quote to the Real Deal that said that this was a big step up for Ryan and I will. And so I framed it, and it's in my office. And, you know, we send out a contract a day at that building. It's crazy. So people are definitely coming back, and the high end is incredibly active, but the rental market has gotten so overheated because there's a fear of the future. People are saying, okay, I need to come back, but I don't know where I'm going to be next year and life and this and Delta and. I mean, have you watched Anderson Cooper? We're all going to die, but I got to rent something. What was this last year? This was like 15,000amonth. What's it now? 15. And it's just, like, complete insanity. Yeah.

So we're going to open up to questions in a minute. So my last question for you. You is, look, you do it all. You've got your brokerage business, you've got the course, you've got the shows, you've got the podcast, written two books, and yet you're there for your family as well. So how do you take us through, like, a typical day, if there is even such a thing? And how do you manage to balance everything?

I think if you asked Amelia, I don't know if she'd Tell you that I'm like, totally there, but it's a negotiation, right? I think I talk to a lot of pro members who have the same problem everywhere. And I tell them, like, listen, every relationship lives and dies on expectations, whether it's a buyer or a seller or a developer or your wife or your husband. If you don't set appropriate expectations and have clear, honest and concise communication, you're gonna have problems. You know, like if I forget to send an update to a seller for 10 days because nothing's been going on in their mind, I don't care about them, I don't love them. I'm ignoring them because I'm too busy. But in my mind, we're doing everything we can. There's just no market for it right now, or there's just no inquiries. But to them, I hate them. And so, you know, with Amelia, I said, I'm going to put everything I absolutely have into building my business right now while I have it and have the opportunity. And so two nights a week, Monday through Friday, I'm home in time to put the baby to bed. Whether the baby wants me to or not is a totally different story. And then Saturdays are for the baby, unless there's something incredibly, incredibly important. And then we try to, at least one night a week, go out to dinner together, just the two of us, and find a new place or something. We just moved to Brooklyn, super weird, and are trying to, like, go out and figure it out, even though we sell so much there.

Do you have tatts yet or no?

No tattoos yet. No tattoos. And that's the deal. And that way expectations are set. I know people will tell me a lot like, well, all right, well, that's too regimented. You're not living your life. It's about the journey and not whatever, but I completely disagree. And I think in order to get to where you want to get to, you're either going to lie to yourself and lie to everybody else, or you're going to be really, really honest about what you want and choose to work with people and be with people who are aligned with your joined interests. And so I have a good partner who understands that. And if I'm home on Sunday, it's really weird. And she asks me why. She's like, shouldn't she be working? Shouldn't she be at the office? Yeah. And then my work life balance. I mean, I wake up at 4:20, I'm in the gym by 5:00', clock, I'm out of the gym by 6:30, my first appointments start at 7:30. I'm booked on the half hour or 15 minute mark, depending on the extent of something, all day, every day. Most of my day is in the back of the car. I've had the same driver for eight years. I got him and got the car way before I could ever afford him. But I like to invest in my future and I knew that if I, if I got him and got the driver, I would be able to make the money back with the deals that I could do by not being in the subway. And that proved true. And then my last appointments, if they're not on those two days, end between 8 and 9pm and then I get home and see her for a second, typically shower and then clean out my inbox that night and prep for the night, the day, the next day, the night before, and then wake up and do it again.

Amazing.

Yeah.

Cool.

Thank you for tuning in this week to real estate investing live from New York. Please join your host, James Nelson for another program next Tuesday at 7pm in New York, 4pm Pacific Time on the Voice America Business Channel. All shows are rebroadcast on Wednesday mornings at 7:00am Eastern Time and 4:00am Pacific Time, as well as always on Demand. We'll talk again next week. Sam.