In January, Topsfield native and star of Netflix reality series “Owning Manhattan,” Ryan Serhant opened a Boston office of his brokerage, SERHANT, finally bringing his nationally known brand back home. Northshore Magazine spoke with the billion-dollar broker, brand builder, and media personality at a 9 Tuttle Lane Lynnfield property being listed by Dylan Costello and Thomas McKenna of Avenue Boston.
What lessons from growing up here in the North Shore shaped the way you approach business today?
Oooooh. (Pauses) Boston is about the people. I think a lot of cities are about the location and there’s that classic saying ‘location, location, location;’ you love that location because it’s the beach, and yeah, people are here, or you love that location because it’s the city, and people are here. Boston and the surrounding suburbs is the strongest community of people I’ve ever seen. You see it in sports, you see it in employment, you see it in general community engagement and awareness, through thick and through thin.
Before the multi-million dollar deals, what was your earliest memory of ambition or drive when you were growing up?
My parents wouldn’t ever just buy stuff for us. Very early on, it was, ‘If you want something other than on your birthday and Christmas, figure out how to get it.’
When I was a little kid, I really, really wanted a video camera – you can see it’s been in my DNA a long time (laughs). I think I was 10 and my little brother was seven. The cameras were thousands and thousands of dollars at the time, and my parents said ‘Great. Figure it out.’ I saw at Market Basket they were selling cords of firewood, and we lived in Topsfield on a 60-acre farm called Donibristle Farm. I thought, we have so many trees on the farm, maybe my parents could cut them down and we could do something? They were clearing a path at the time for the polo hunt, and I told them I would like to sell the wood they had laying around, so I went and found a guy that was working on our property and said, ‘If you would help me deliver wood, that’d be great.’ We took out an ad in the local newspaper called Jack Ryan Wood, because my little brother was Jack and he wouldn’t do it unless his name was first, which is really annoying but a solid negotiation. So I put together my own little business, only I didn’t realize how many pieces of firewood a cord was – it’s a ginormous amount of firewood, no joke – like two pick up trucks. I got one customer. It was a complete disaster and I shut down the business the next day, but Jack Ryan Wood was my one-day-old business and I decided I never wanted to do manual labor again.
You left the North Shore to pursue acting in New York City, what did that experience teach you about resilience?
The acting business was crucial to my career and to my success for two reasons: One, the training you have as an actor is the training you would give to any salesperson starting with one, the ability to memorize; two, your ability to improvise. That’s what sales is, you ask questions — it’s literally a muscle that you can develop. You improvise, you meet strangers on the street; people hate being sold, but they love shopping with friends, and you learn how to always be on. Two, the acting business is terrible. You don’t get paid, you work for free until you don’t, there’s no salary, there’s no benefits, and it is a success-reward trade, so the number of people who get into the acting business who quit is incredibly high. Same with sales. When I got into real estate after two years trying to be an actor in the city, I built up a pretty thick skin. You wouldn’t get a role because of your hair or your face or your nose or your voice. A lot of people get into real estate and they quit because the rejection is too hard and they take it so personally, but for me, it wasn’t about my face or my hair or my nose, it was about the property, and it’s fine because there’s going to be another person, there’s going to be another property, and that is how that world really shaped my real estate career.
Was there a specific deal or moment where you realized your career had really shifted into another gear?
I knew I was going to go on my own eventually. I never wanted to work for somebody else. I always wanted to be the master and commander of my own universe. My first large deal was for $8.3 million at 45 W. 67th Street in the city [New York] and it came from a random guy who called me one night at the office when I was sitting there by myself because I had nothing else to do — I had no business, I was just posting Craigslist ads for rentals. I had one large listing that was completely unsellable because it was worth five million dollars but the seller had wanted 15, and I was broker number nine. It was my one pinnacle listing but it was never going to sell. One day, a guy calls me and says he wants to buy. Long story short, he bought the property, and I asked why he finally went through with it, and he said he felt bad for me and he had never seen someone follow up the way I did. It really taught me the power of humble persistence and what it means to want something, and manifest destiny whether it is a singular deal, or a career, or a company.
You’ve been strategic about your growth, starting in New York and expanding to Florida, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and now, offices in more than a dozen states. But you’ve held off on Massachusetts until now. Why?
I was always going to come to Boston, both of my brothers are here. It’s a market that I care very, very deeply about. Maybe there’s a little analysis paralysis for me here in that I wanted to do it in the absolute right way with the right people. I have no interest in building the biggest real estate firm. I have all the interest in building the best, and until we were of a certain size and scale with a really clear value proposition to our customers, it just didn’t make sense. Now is the right time. It’s the largest launch I’ve ever done. We have some incredible founders and agents and they come from other firms; no one who works for us is brand new and whether it’s leaving the local, smaller shops or leaving the largest companies in the country, they’re finding the most success in today’s market at this company and I’m just excited to provide that platform for them.
If a kid growing up on the North Shore today wanted to build the kind of career you’ve created, what would you tell them they need to do differently than you did?
I could go back in time, I would tell myself not to wait. There’s no waiting anymore. People have analysis paralysis. They don’t have fear of failure, they have fear of embarrassment. You have to take as many swings as possible, and you have to strike out as often as possible. You’ve got to regret the things you did rather than the things you never tried. That’s what I would say – if you’re from the North Shore, take the swing. What’s the worst that can happen? You’re not going to die, so if you want to be a top broker in Boston, go find that person, work for them for free, dig in for two or three years and you will treat it as your grad degree, otherwise you have no right to complain.
The Lynnfield property was crafted by luxury custom home builder, Orr Homes, and has herringbone white oak floors and ten-foot ceilings overhead. It has a chef’s kitchen, outfitted with Sub-Zero, Wolf & Cove appliances, and the private primary suite features a double-sided fireplace, spa bath, digital shower, and freestanding soaking tub. The finished lower level has a gym, sauna, cold plunge, and wet bar. A fully integrated Nice smart home system controls the environment effortlessly.
For more information about the 9 Tuttle Lane Lynnfield property contact Thomas McKenna 978-995-2043, Serhant 617-250-0559, or Dylan Costello 617-642-2061.