If there’s anything we learned from last night’s episode of “Million Dollar Listing New York,” it’s that biting off more than you can chew will eventually come back to bite you.
While Luis and Ryan were contemplating the “integrity” of their business relationship, they failed to rectify an even bigger problem — an impossible price tag. Fredrik learned about the price of an unkempt listing the hard way, when a 50-foot-wide “mansion” unit failed to tidy itself up in time for a private showing.
Let’s catch up with our three heroes:
We start Round Two at the Metropolitan Tower in Midtown, where Luis and Ryan are co-listing a four-bedroom penthouse for $16 million. Luis is still simmering over Ryan’s decision to work with the unit’s developer at Another Project On Spring Street, proving you should never come between a broker and his developer BFF. “Integrity is what makes you last in this business,” says Luis, who discovered the news on the Internet. Ryan storms out of the meeting, in search of Emilia and, more importantly, some comfort food at Pizzetteria Brunetti.
Ryan confides in his fiancée that he does indeed have “feelings” and is a “human being just like everybody else.” Because she’s the muscle in this real estate relationship, Emilia confronts Luis at the penthouse launch, which is obviously the best place to handle matters other than business. Though this meeting is futile, Ryan finally gets in touch with his human side and kind-of apologizes to Luis.
Don’t mess with Emilia
Despite the reunion, the co-brokers are unable to reconcile the penthouse’s price tag. Why would anyone pay $16 million at the Met Tower when they could have an apartment at One57 or 432 Park for twice the price? Luis and Ryan are only able to muster up a single $12 million offer after 30 days, which gets them booted from the project. In a twist that everybody sees coming, the developer also pulls Ryan off Spring Street.
“I will think twice before you call me to co-list,” Ryan says, as he huffs out of his second meeting of the episode.
After planting his flag in Tarrytown, Fredrik is off to conquer new territory, this time in Downtown Manhattan. Like the New York Times, he knows that everybody is so over Soho.
“For the longest time it was all about Soho, Soho, Soho — and now, it’s all about Noho,” Fredrik says. “I mean Noho is everything … all the cool people, they want to be in Noho.” Fredrik was hired to sell two apartments at the Schumacher — a $9.25 million penthouse and an unfinished mansion unit, asking $9.25 million and $9.5 million respectively. The penthouse is a work of art, but the mansion is still a work in progress, to say the least.
Fredrik’s fatal flaw was not serving alcohol during his open house. “Who’s going to write a $10 million check drinking sparkling water?” he jokes — but really, who would ever sign a $10 million check sober? Only those with impaired vision would ever consider buying that junkyard mansion. When a $9 million, all-cash offer comes in for the penthouse, however, developer Armen Boyajian of Stillman Development agrees to clean up his act.
Unfortunately, not in time for a private showing. Fredrik knows he’s in big trouble because the prospective buyer is flying in from Singapore — and apparently, Singapore is the neat-freak capital of the world. “I lived in Singapore for eight months, it’s the cleanest place in the world,” Fredrik says. “You don’t only get fined if you litter, you go the jail.”
In that case, Fredrik would serve a life sentence for the sorry state of the unfinished mansion.