Going Over The List: Ryan Serhant

Written By looke listen

Ryan Serhant earned just $9,000 in his first year as a real estate agent — this year, his own brokerage is on pace to close nearly $10 billion in sales. Ryan Serhant is a real estate broker, entrepreneur, author, and television personality, best known for starring in Bravo's Million Dollar Listing New York and Netflix's Owning Manhattan, and for founding SERHANT., a media-driven brokerage he built from the ground up in 2020.

Rather than running a traditional real estate firm, Serhant has built what he calls a media and technology company that happens to sell real estate — complete with an in-house film studio, an education arm, and millions of social media followers who function as his lead-generation engine. In this post, we're going over Ryan Serhant's List using two interviews to see how his life fits into the Home, Work, and Self framework.

Sources

Home

House

  • Real Estate - Ryan and Emilia spent three years renovating a 7,900-square-foot townhouse in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, worth roughly $7.8 million, after outgrowing their SoHo condo.

  • Design - The full renovation was documented on Bravo's Million Dollar Listing: Ryan's Renovation, a level of transparency about his own home that mirrors how public he is about his business.

  • Maintain - A gut renovation of that scale, spanning three years and a pandemic, required significant outside contractors and project management rather than anything the couple handled themselves.

Partner

  • Quality Time - Ryan and Emilia Bechrakis met in New York and married in 2016, an event documented in its own Bravo special, Ryan's Wedding.

  • Shared Responsibilities - Emilia, a lawyer by training, has continued her own legal and volunteer work alongside co-parenting, and has spoken about how their different cultural backgrounds — Ryan's more reserved New England family versus her large, involved Greek family — actually complement each other rather than clash.

  • Conversation - The couple has been open about a three-year struggle with infertility before conceiving their daughter through IVF, a journey Emilia later turned into a children's book, To the Moon and Back for You, to support other families going through the same thing.

Family

  • Parents - Ryan was born in Houston, Texas, and raised in Topsfield, Massachusetts, by his father John, former Vice Chairman of State Street Global Advisors, and his mother Ellen, whom he's called his best friend.

  • Siblings - He grew up with two brothers, Jim and Jack.

  • Kids - Ryan and Emilia have one daughter, Zena, born in February 2019 after their IVF journey; Ryan has said everything he does professionally is ultimately for his family, and that quality time, not just quantity, is what matters most with her.

Work

Make

  • Time - Serhant's real estate career started small — $9,000 in commissions his first year at Nest Seekers in 2008 — before he closed his first major sale for $8.5 million the following year.

  • Space - SERHANT.'s headquarters is a 15,000-square-foot space in SoHo called "SERHANT. House NYC," built to function as part office, part creative studio, and part clubhouse rather than a conventional brokerage floor.

  • Supplies - The firm runs its own in-house film studio for content production, treating media output as core infrastructure rather than a marketing add-on.

Show

  • In Real Life - Serhant continues to close major deals directly, including a nearly $200 million transaction — one of the largest of his career.

  • Print - He's written multiple bestselling books, including Sell It Like Serhant, Big Money Energy, and Brand It Like Serhant, alongside a top-selling online sales course.

  • Online - SERHANT. has become the most-followed real estate brand in the world, with over 8 million followers across social platforms, and Ryan stars in Netflix's Owning Manhattan following his run on Bravo's Million Dollar Listing New York.

Sell

  • Products - His Sell It Like Serhant course and books function as standalone revenue streams built on his sales methodology.

  • Services - SERHANT.'s core business is brokerage — the firm topped $1 billion in annual sales in its first full years and is on track to close nearly $10 billion this year alone, all without spending money on traditional advertising.

  • Events - He regularly delivers paid keynote talks worldwide on sales, branding, and entrepreneurship.

Self

Wellbeing

  • Mind - Serhant has described drawing on an athlete's sense of calm under pressure, citing Tiger Woods' composure in high-stakes moments as a model for how he handles his own biggest deals.

  • Body - His schedule is famously tightly structured — by 9:30 a.m. some mornings, he's already filmed a national TV segment, trained agents, and posted on social media.

  • Soul - He's acknowledged that a significant part of what drives him is ego, saying bluntly that people talk about him because when they talk about themselves, no one listens — an unusually candid admission for someone whose brand is built on charisma.

Admin

  • Time - Every hour of his day is accounted for, with minutes actively monetized between filming, training, and client work.

  • Paperwork - SERHANT. operates as a vertically integrated company spanning brokerage, education, marketing, and technology divisions, a far more complex structure than a typical single-office brokerage.

  • Money - The firm raised $45 million in outside funding to keep scaling, on top of its own sales revenue, formalizing what started as Ryan's personal brand into an investor-backed company.

Social

  • Friends - His creative and business partnership with his production team has turned his real estate deals into ongoing television content, blurring the line between colleague and collaborator.

  • Communities - SERHANT. has expanded into eight states, including a return to his native Massachusetts with a Boston office, which he's described as tapping into one of the strongest community identities he's encountered anywhere.

  • One-on-One - He's said the core of his sales philosophy is old-fashioned, individual connection — face-to-face communication and follow-up — even as his business has scaled into a media machine.

Key Takeaways

  • Serhant turned personal visibility into infrastructure — his brokerage's growth engine is literally an in-house media studio rather than traditional advertising.

  • He and Emilia have been unusually public about a private struggle (infertility), turning it into material that helps other families rather than keeping it private.

  • His daily schedule reflects the same intensity as his business model — nothing goes unmonetized, including his own attention.

  • He's disarmingly honest about ego being part of what drives him, rather than framing his ambition purely as passion or mission.

  • The business scaled fast because he treated content and brokerage as inseparable from day one, not because the underlying real estate model changed.

Links & Resources

Official Websites & SERHANT.

  1. SERHANT. — Official Website
    SERHANT.

  2. Ryan Serhant — Official Website
    Ryan Serhant

  3. Ryan Serhant — SERHANT. Agent Profile
    Ryan Serhant Agent Profile

  4. SERHANT. — About the Company
    About SERHANT.

  5. SERHANT. Ventures
    SERHANT. Ventures

  6. Sell It Like Serhant — Official Ryan Serhant Page

  7. Sell It Like Serhant — Publisher Page

  8. Sell It Like Serhant — Google Books

Social Media

  1. Ryan Serhant — Instagram
    Ryan Serh    ant on Instagram

  2. SERHANT. — Instagram
    SERHANT. on Instagram

  3. Ryan Serhant — LinkedIn
    Ryan Serhant on LinkedIn

  4. SERHANT. — YouTube
    SERHANT. on YouTube

Books

  1. Sell It Like Serhant
    Sell It Like Serhant

  2. Big Money Energy
    Big Money Energy

  3. Brand It Like Serhant
    Brand It Like Serhant

  4. SERHANT. Ventures — Books & Resources
    SERHANT. Books and Resources

Courses, Training & Sales Education

  1. SERHANT. Ventures — Education & Products
    SERHANT. Ventures

  2. The Sales Toolkit
    The Sales Toolkit

  3. SERHANT. Academy / Education Resources
    SERHANT. Education Resources

Podcasts & Audio

  1. Big Money Energy Podcast — Ryan Serhant
    Big Money Energy Podcast

  2. Ryan Serhant — Podcast Search on Spotify
    Ryan Serhant on Spotify

  3. Ryan Serhant — Podcast Search on Apple Podcasts
    Ryan Serhant on Apple Podcasts

Interviews & Media

  1. Ryan Serhant — LinkedIn Profile & Professional Updates
    Ryan Serhant on LinkedIn

  2. Architectural Digest — Ryan Serhant Interview
    Ryan Serhant on Architectural Digest

  3. People — Ryan Serhant & Owning Manhattan
    Ryan Serhant on People

  4. Ryan Serhant — Reddit AMA
    Ryan Serhant Reddit AMA

  5. Netflix Tudum — Ryan Serhant & Owning Manhattan
    Netflix Tudum: Ryan Serhant's Owning Manhattan

Owning Manhattan

  1. Owning Manhattan — Watch on Netflix
    Owning Manhattan on Netflix

  2. Owning Manhattan — Netflix Media Center
    Owning Manhattan on Netflix Media Center

  3. Owning Manhattan — Netflix Tudum
    Owning Manhattan: Netflix Tudum

Real Estate & SERHANT. Resources

  1. SERHANT. — Luxury Real Estate Brokerage
    SERHANT. Real Estate

  2. Ryan Serhant — Real Estate Listings & Profile
    Ryan Serhant Real Estate Profile

  3. SERHANT. Ventures — Products, Partnerships & Extensions
    SERHANT. Ventures

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