Tyler Whitman — a broker at startup firm Triplemint — may be the newest cast member of Bravo’s “Million Dollar Listing: New York.”
There’s no official word from the network just yet, but consider the evidence: Sources said he told his team just before Christmas that he was joining the show. He subsequently tagged two Bravo producers in an Instagram post announcing major news in 2019. Then, on Jan. 8, Triplemint CEO David Walker emailed agents and staff to let them know Bravo would be filming at the firm’s office, located at 200 West 42nd Street. On Friday, a blog devoted to reality TV called Tamara Tattles reported the news.
Bravo did not respond to a request for comment from The Real Deal, and both Whitman and Walker declined to comment, as did current stars of “MDLNY.”
The network has been on the hunt for a new star, and in September circulated a casting call for an “up-and-coming agent with a huge personality” to join the cast of “MDLNY.” Whitman — an agent with nearly $7 million in listings, from a startup firm, to boot — fit the bill, sources said.
Unlike the big brokerage houses on the show, Triplemint is among a cadre of new lead-generation firms, which use technology to acquire buyer leads as a way of getting business. The company, founded in 2011 by Walker and Philip Lang, has raised nearly $7 million to date. The founders bill Triplemint as a tech-driven brokerage that uses software to predict who is likely to buy and sell real estate.
Whitman has been in the business for more than a decade — but only became a broker in 2016, according to his LinkedIn profile.
The University of Alabama grad moved to New York at age 20 and made ends meet by selling Broadway tickets to tourists in Times Square during the day and working at Planet Hollywood at night. His roommate, who was an agent, convinced him to try his hand at brokerage. “I was hooked by my first deal,” he said in an interview for Triplemint’s blog, Julep.
After working at Metropolitan Property Group, Whitman joined Triplemint in 2013 and became the startup’s first head of sales. Around the time he became a full-time agent in 2016, he began documenting his diet and fitness regimen — he lost 175 pounds — on social media. He’s also used social platforms to post videos of himself offering words of “Whitman Wisdom.”
In a post on Dec. 20, 2018 — in which he tagged Million Dollar Listing producers Danielle King and Nick Prescott — he hinted that the New Year would be the “most incredible year” of his life.
Whitman currently has $6.7 million in listings, according to StreetEasy, including a two-bedroom at 252 Seventh Avenue that’s asking $3.75 million. For a time, Whitman had Triplemint’s biggest listing: Bobby Flay’s 3,256-square-foot Chelsea condo, which hit the market asking $8 million. (The Corcoran Group now has the listing, which has since been reduced to $6.35 million.)
His past deals include several Brooklyn townhouses, and he represented the actor Tommy Dorfman, star of Netflix’s “13 Reasons Why,” in the sale of his Ocean Hill home. The 2,300-square-foot house at 720 Decatur closed last year for just over $1.5 million.
“If you want to become an agent because you’ve seen agents on TV make $500K in one day’s work, your expectations are not going to be met,” he said in a Triplemint blog post. “It’s really challenging to get started.”