Ryan Serhant is heading back to where he started.
The top broker and reality television star from Nest Seekers International is returning to Long Island City, where he first cut his teeth in sales, with two new condo projects and plans for a new office.
Renderings of The Prime at 22-43 Jackson Avenue in Long Island City
The first is a 109-unit condo called Hero, at 24-16 Queens Plaza South, which will launch sales in June. The project consists of studios, one- and two-bedrooms with prices starting at $500,000, according to Serhant. The broker and his team was hired at the start of the year by Silverback Development to handle the Hero’s sales and marketing. Silverback acquired the property in February with AEW Capital Management for $80 million and filed plans with the state Attorney General’s office the same month.
The second project, designed by Andres Escobar and known as the Prime, is at 22-43 Jackson Avenue. It will consist of 71 units and is slated to launch sales in the fall with a mix of one- to three-beds beginning at $675,000. Serhant said his team has been working with developer Circle F Capital on the Prime for three years, or “before Amazon Prime was even a thing” in Serhant time. Circle F is a NoMad-based family office led by Gary and David Feldman, and they initially filed plans for the project back in spring 2017.
On the heels of both projects, Serhant said he plans to open an office in Queens by the end of the year and current members of his team will move over to establish the new outpost. He said the impetus for moving into another borough came after hearing from buyers checking out properties in Greenpoint and a handful of other Brooklyn neighborhoods that they were also looking in LIC.
Renderings of The Prime at 22-43 Jackson Avenue in Long Island City
Inventory in Queens is swelling as prices and sales volume slows and the average sales price in the first quarter of 2019 slipped 0.6 percent to about $620,500, as compared to the previous quarter, according to Douglas Elliman’s most recent borough report.
When asked if he has any reservations about branding when it comes to going into a lower-priced neighborhood, he noted that he got asked the same question when he opened offices in Bedford-Stuyvesant and that “every single broker followed. Now it’s just annoying.”
Serhant recently added to his New York Team and is considering opening offices in Chicago and Boston. “My brand is what sells,” he said.