‘Playmakers’: Why ‘growth was not a business plan’ for SERHANT 

A year before SERHANT's 2020 launch, Founder and CEO Ryan Serhant was thinking about moving his 65-member team to another firm. But the interviews he had with several brokerage leaders left him feeling "uninspired."

The celebrity real estate broker who rose to fame on reality TV shows like "Million Dollar Listing" and "Owning Manhattan" said in a recent Playmakers podcast appearance that he "was very focused on how real estate was going to be bought and sold in 2030 and how I could bring that next generation of salesperson — and homebuyer and homeseller and developer — into the future."

Ultimately, "I just couldn't do it at another company," he said. Six years after its launch, his New York City-headquartered firm has expanded — most recently into Texas and California — and debuted on the T3 Sixty Real Estate Almanac's Mega 1000 at No. 26, with over $7 billion in sales volume in 2025.

A 'person-first' brokerage: "Growth was not a business plan. Providing an experience that did not exist in the marketplace was our business plan — and that is why we've grown," Serhant said, adding that his brokerage operates with a "person-first" strategy.

"Everything we built — and we've been able to build AI native because we're so new here, and our platform's simple — is for the person, is for the agent," he said. "Controlling that underlying transaction layer, I think, has been a major miss for firms. And that's where SERHANT comes into play."

Vouching for a transparent marketplace: Amid the ongoing industry debate over private listings and pre-marketing, Serhant said he wants "market transparency" and "honesty."

"I want sellers to be able to sell however they want to be able to sell. If they want to sell quietly, they should sell quietly," he said.

"But I don't like gatekeeping and having the owner of the information be owned by the gatekeeper. I think that provides problems," he said, adding that while that strategy may be beneficial from a business standpoint, "I don't think it's good for the consumer."

The issue with Compass' 'mission': One of the industry's loudest voices in the private listings debate is Compass, which Serhant recently predicted will be the only real estate firm "of note" — aside from his own company — by 2030.

Compass' mission, he explained, is "to control inventory" and prioritize "customer choice."

"I don't think that's a terrible mission," he said. "I think the problem with that though is the human species, as an incentivized body, really needing market transparency."

What to do — and not do — as a new agent: Rather than enter real estate alone with "no training, no guidance, no support, no coaching," as Serhant did, he urges new agents to "find a great team and figure out how to get on that team and learn."

If you're young and have little experience? That's fine — so long as you own it. "My best pitch when I first got into the business was, 'No, I don't have the experience. But as long as we price appropriately, I will die to sell this because I need to pay rent on the first,'" he recalled. "There is a certain level of respect for brutal honesty and transparency that people do really like."

Finding your 'and': There are millions of agents in the U.S. — so simply branding yourself as a real estate pro? It's not enough, Serhant said.

"Especially when you begin, you need to be real estate and — pick one thing. Maybe you're real estate and you're a mom. Maybe it's real estate and you're dad. Maybe it's real estate and you're a competitive sailboat racer, or cooking. Pick one, lean into it, make content about it, talk about it," he advised.

"Associating yourself with interest groups and other human beings who have 'ands' that are similar to yours is very, very helpful."