Photos by Jason Malihan
About 400 guests were gathered to ring in the holidays, but Ryan Serhant’s focus was on Q1.
Donning a black blazer with neon snowflakes, snowglobes and presents, Serhant predicted that next year, his eponymous brokerage would surpass the $2 billion in sales he said it brought in this year.
“We are the best in challenged, volatile markets,” he said at the firm’s holiday party last week. “That’s where I built my career, in the tough markets of 2009 and then 2017… We’ll begin to expand next year.”
Attendees mingling over prosecco and beer at the firm’s flagship three-story office at 372 West Broadway in Soho were noticeably younger than the average brokerage partygoers, something that might be expected at a firm that claims to be the best in industry at branding and social media.
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While a DJ blasted music to an empty dance floor down below, the vibe up on the main floor was understated. Hard liquor was absent, though a pair of intrepid reporters tracked down bottles of whiskey and tequila stashed on a third-floor shelf, where Serhant staff escaped from the crowd beneath white boards that displayed large to-do lists labeled WEBSITE, GOALS and BRANDING — evident relics of the company’s founding. The event’s only hiccup was that the bars and coat check were understaffed.
The extensive guestlist may have run up a tab for Serhant, but he’s got some extra cash to throw around: A Black Friday sale for “Sell it Like Serhant” courses, the educational component of his business, brought in $600,000 in a single day, he said.
“We started the company in 2020, that’s when we were born; 2021 we learned to crawl; 2022 we learned to walk, setting up all the systems and processes,” Serhant said. “Next year we start to run.”