Riding on the recent success of “Million Dollar Listing New York,” TV star and NestSeekers International broker Ryan Serhant has been tapped by his firm to head its newest office at 156 Reade Street in Tribeca, he told The Real Deal yesterday.
The 2,000-square-foot Tribeca storefront, NestSeekers’ 10th, will house 40 agents over two floors, Serhant said. The official Serhant team, which currently includes seven NestSeekers employees and is housed at 415 Madison Avenue, is slated to expand to 17 to occupy the space in the coming months, he said. The executive vice president is aggressively recruiting outside the firm. Other NestSeekers agents will relocate from other office to fill the remainder of the space.
The tapping of Serhant to head the company’s first Tribeca office comes hot on the heels of the season finale of “Million Dollar Listing New York,” which garnered much career success for Serhant. He told The Real Deal that he’s hired four new agents for his team in the few months since the show premiered — “All day long all I’m doing is interviewing people,” he said. Meanwhile, he said his sales for 2012 surpassed those of 2011 as of last month.
“He’s created an incredible following,” said NestSeekers CEO Eddie Shapiro of his decision to put Serhant, whose TV show has just been renewed for a second season, in charge of the office. “His own team is kind of exploding and has outgrown its office in Midtown.”
The Tribeca storefront is housed in a townhouse property on the corner of Greenwich Street, which was Manhattan’s first privately owned green building. Designed by architect John Petrarca, it features an energy-efficient geothermal heating and cooling system.
NestSeekers signed a five-year lease at the property, with a five-year renewal option, but Shapiro declined to comment on rent for the space. NestsSeekers already has offices all over Manhattan, in Williamsburg and in Long Island City. Serhant and his team will likely move into the office sometime next week, he said.
Meanwhile, with close to 300 agents and staff, NestSeekers is working on expanding its business all over the country. It already has four Hamptons offices and has plans to reopen satellite offices in Miami Beach, which were closed to limit exposure during the recession, and is scouting for its first Beverly Hills location.
“The way we’re thinking about growth,” Shapiro said, “is servicing our customer base in all of its real estate needs. When our clients consider a second home in the Hamptons, we want them to be able to stay with us. We also have high-profile individuals who would rather be in Beverly Hills than anywhere else.”