Serena Boardman

In 2009, Boardman was named the top-selling real estate agent in the country by the Wall Street Journal with $255 million in deals. More than 15 years later, little has changed. Boardman’s $260 million worth of sell-side deals placed her second in The Real Deal’s ranking of New York City’s resale brokers by volume. 

Known as a co-op board whisperer and luxe townhouse seller, Boardman’s reputation is an agent whose combination of social connections and graces allow her to wend through difficult sales. 

Boardman’s deft hand with the city’s well-heeled buyers could be credited to her upbringing. She grew up among the Upper East Side’s upper crust, where she cavorted with names like Getty, Von Furstenberg and Lauder. Boardman leveraged those connections into business. 

She first made a name for herself when she represented both sides in a $48 million deal for a co-op at 2 East 67th Street, the most expensive New York co-op ever sold at the time in 2008. Six years later, she set the record again when she brought the buyer for the $70 million penthouse at 960 Fifth Avenue — and for good measure, one more time a year later, when she got Len Blavatnik into Woody Johnson’s duplex at 834 Fifth Avenue for $77.5 million.