“Million Dollar Listing NY”: Two brokers are not always better than one

Recap of Season 6, Episode 6

From left: Fredrik Eklund, Steve Gold, Ryan Serhant
From left: Fredrik Eklund, Steve Gold, Ryan Serhant

On this week’s “Million Dollar Listing New York,” Ryan and Steve find themselves partnering up on their trendy downtown listings. For Ryan, the partnership leads to a deal, while for Steve, it only leads to frustration. Meanwhile, Fredrik sets a sales record, and he joins Ryan to meet an old friend for lunch.

Here’s what our three heroes were up to this week:

Fredrik

Last week, the Swede bent a few rules when he showed the penthouse of his listing at 5 Beekman when he wasn’t supposed to, and ended up with an offer $2 million under ask (whoops). The developer, Eric Bass, wasn’t thrilled, and this week Fredrik has to hunt down this prospective buyer – or rather, that prospective buyer’s designer, Brent — to see if he can get the offer up.

After trying to contact Brent by text, phone, email and even going to the restaurant where Brent geo-tagged himself on Instagram, Fredrik eventually finds him and gets a new offer of $11.2 million – only $800,000 short of the apartment’s $12 million asking price.

This is still not enough for Eric, and not even the sight of Fredrik’s dog Mini in a hooded sweatshirt can convince him otherwise. Fredrik engages in some tense negotiations over text message with Brent (“You never negotiate over text, I mean I wrote a book about this!”) and manages to get the price to $11.6 million.

Eric is satisfied with this price and they make a deal. Fredrik promises him that since the deal is a record for the neighborhood, the press will be sure to write about it – and what do you know, he was right.

Ryan

We meet Ryan drowning his sorrows in Sex and the Beaches at Beautique, where he is preparing to have a difficult conversation with his fellow broker, Danny. Danny has been helping Ryan sell a $25 million townhouse listing in Tribeca – at least he was until last week the seller, Alan, told Ryan he wants him and only him on the listing.

When Ryan delivers the tough news to Danny, he takes it hard: “I’ve been in the business 20 years, I’m likeable!” he exclaims. Thankfully, Ryan has a (sneaky) plan; he will be the face of the listing and answer all of Alan’s phone calls, but Danny will do all of the work. “You’re my listing mistress!” he says. Danny is into this idea, and kisses Ryan on the cheek to prove it.

The plan pays off, and Danny comes back with a rather nice offer for Alan; two mysterious musicians from California want to rent the house for a year for $600,000. “Well that doesn’t suck,” Alan begrudgingly admits, but he wants to be able to keep the house on the market while he is renting it.

Ryan runs out to call Danny to ask, who calls his prospective renters and … they’re into it! Alan even takes back all the mean things he said about Danny when he finds out he’s the one who did the deal.

With that settled (at least temporarily), Ryan goes to a new building in Chelsea, where only one of the six units has sold since it was listed seven months ago. Ryan isn’t totally sure why the units aren’t selling – they’re beautiful and priced well – but then suspects it might be because of the construction site next door.

The developer, Matt, wants Ryan to pull out all the stops on a glitzy marketing scheme that gets the project noticed. After mulling it over, Ryan comes up with a plan to do — nothing. The building is nice enough that he doesn’t think a gimmick is necessary, and that a regular party will be sufficient. “The building is the event,” he says.

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Matt isn’t so sure that’s true, and tells Ryan if his event doesn’t get lots of attention and offers, he’s pulling him from the listing. Ryan’s beard quivers in fear.

Steve

Steve reunites with a fellow NYU alum, Cristina, who is listing her fab Soho loft (with a terrace!) for $16 million. Steve thinks the price is a biiiiit high, but that’s not his real issue with the listing – rather, it’s that Cristina wants him to pair up with her friend and fellow broker, Lori Shabtai.

Steve doesn’t love this arrangement, declaring, “I don’t co-list.” But we guess the crackle of the wood burning fireplaces was enough to persuade him otherwise, because he agrees.

Lori is a commercial broker who is trying to break into residential, and she’s got a slightly different idea of how to do things than Steve does. Namely, she wants to have a 8 a.m. open house, even though Steve doesn’t think anyone will show up until nine or 10.

Nevertheless they try it out – except Lori doesn’t arrive at 8 a.m., and in fact shows up three hours late. Steve, clutching his Starbucks cup with fists of rage, tries to play it cool, but when Lori starts showing the apartment off to buyers whom he has already given a tour to, he starts getting angry.

“This is insane, I mean she shows up late, she’s doing a showing I already did. I don’t know how long this co-listing is going to last.”

And finally, Luis

Luis is back!

Luis is back! Well, kind of! He, Fredrik and Ryan meet for a tense lunch where he tells them he just received gall bladder surgery (and can’t have sex), and is moving to Paris in a couple of days.

What prompted the move? Apparently he watched “La La Land,” (which doesn’t Even Take Place in Paris) and had a nice glass of Bordeaux one night. And all this led him to thinking that Paris is where he needs to be. Luis has never been to Paris, but isn’t worried, shrugging off Fredrik and Ryan’s concerns saying, “I’ll figure it out.”

Ryan and Fredrik are very skeptical of the move, thinking Luis is blowing his shot at becoming a star broker (like them!).

While Luis takes their opinions into consideration – “It’s starting to make me question whether what I’m doing is childish and impulsive and not smart,” – he ultimately decides to go for it, because his instinct tells him to do.

“That’s what growing up means,” he says tearfully. Bon voyage, Luis!