Big Deals & Bigger Egos with Ryan Serhant

Speaker 1 The following podcast is a DR Media production.

Speaker 2 the good guys.

Speaker 1 Whoa. Mars Lamarins, welcome back to the Good Guys podcast.
We're sitting here with Ryan Serhant, incredible real estate mogul. Just did so many things.

Speaker 1 Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, just brilliant. And if you need to sell or buy rich, rich, and if you need to sell or buy a two-bedroom townhouse in a tier B city, babe, Ryan's not for you.

Speaker 1 We are also in tier B cities. That's, you know, I think it's important that people know.

Speaker 1 In Dayton. Is there a Sirhant in Dayton? No, not yet.
We haven't. We've made ourselves

Speaker 1 up and down the East Coast. We started out in the West Coast,

Speaker 1 just in Arizona. We just opened in Vegas and we're continuing to move west, just spreading our Sirhant seed, you know?

Speaker 1 Flagstaff? No, it's Scottsdale. I know it's got course.
Scottsdale, yeah, like greater, greater Phoenix. But we have agents everywhere now.
It's been a pretty wild process. Wow.
Yeah. Wow.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 You don't need to hear it from me, but watching starting in million-dollar listing and seeing where you are now, it's just like an unbelievable 15-year arc.

Speaker 4 Like, it's so unbelievably impressive what you've built. And just congrats to you.
I had no idea how big it was. I was on the phone with my friend Tyler Cameron last month.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 He was working. Who's working for you?

Speaker 4 And it's just like, it's just like so revolutionary to even think about like using, I guess, influencers and talent as brokers.

Speaker 4 Like it's such like a new age rate way of thinking about the real estate industry.

Speaker 1 Yeah, my goal is to slowly but surely have both of you guys also work for me. That's, that's, that's just, I mean, that's honestly why I'm, why I'm here.
Why not? You know, at the end of the day,

Speaker 1 yeah, come sell. I was at a, a dinner two nights ago.
Um, I saw Jason Biggs and his wife an apartment. And so we went to this, this, this dinner and in walks, uh, Aaron Paul from Breaking Bad.
Right.

Speaker 1 And the only thing that goes through my mind, because everyone kind of looks at each other for a second, is

Speaker 1 they should all start a real estate team. Yeah.
Yeah. You know, like Dos Ombres homes,

Speaker 1 you know, like from tequila to your new kitchen where the tequila goes, like that would, that would sell, you know, it could do that easily.

Speaker 4 I love it. And I, and I heard Dos Ombres is just getting crushed, crushed.
So they need, they need a new job. So I think you should pick them up.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I think you should pick them up.

Speaker 4 And we're, Josh, what would we be? Good deals?

Speaker 1 Sure. Like, what's a, what's a, right? There you go.

Speaker 1 Yeah. What, uh,

Speaker 1 aside from just like the novelty of it, what is good about an influencer becoming a real estate agent? Why do you want us?

Speaker 1 Um, most influencers would be terrible real estate agents because they're already so untrustworthy on the internet. Why would you trust them with your own? All entertainment types.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 You're in there too, Ryan. But you have to understand, like, I would say the, the, the, the, the goal so far is no longer like the fight for pricing or the fight for properties, right?

Speaker 1 It's, it's just just the fight for attention. And it sounds so gross to say, but it is what it is.
There are so many homes out there to be bought and sold. They're not all quality.

Speaker 1 And so how do you work with somebody that can put your property in front of more qualified eyeballs than anybody else? So I can do that personally, but then how do you do that at scale?

Speaker 1 Then you start to work through collaborations with people like Tyler Cameron, et cetera, you know, as people build their own audiences. And then they're able to go and target market.

Speaker 1 people who are not maybe making the decision, but who are influencing the decision.

Speaker 1 For example, I'm 10 10 minutes late to this podcast i apologize greatly to the royalty um in the room but i was being yelled at by someone we have his house on the market on the east coast for 90 million dollars right hasn't sold it's been four days and he's very angry nice piedaire yeah solid pieter

Speaker 1 yep solid 90 million dollars and that listing came to us from uh the 22 year old son Because the dad would have worked with somebody else that he knew for the past 30, 40, 50, 60 years.

Speaker 1 And the son is sitting there at the dinner table saying, dad, dad's older, if you die and you leave this with us, it's our problem. You don't need to be at this house anymore.
It's time to sell it.

Speaker 1 Let's go. Let's move it.
The way we find out about any products, whether it's new diapers or real estate or cars, is through the palm of our hands.

Speaker 1 You have to work with the firm who is reaching everybody through the palm of their hands and not the person who's waiting on a newspaper ad for a month now, you know, et cetera.

Speaker 1 And then the parents realize it. So we spin that media flywheel all day long.
And so influencers are a part of that, as long as they have a strong know, like, and trust factor.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 What does a $90 million apartment look like? Like, what is a house?

Speaker 1 It's an oceanfront house. It's

Speaker 1 a beautiful property. You know, it's a couple acres on the ocean, 200 feet on the sand.

Speaker 1 You know, it's, it's, your price point is no longer attached to the property at that point, like the actual house at that point. It's the rarity of

Speaker 1 the lot. You're really buying location, location, location.

Speaker 1 It's the the same thing when we sell properties on Central Park or on the water in Manhattan or some of the beautiful properties you have here. It's, okay, the house is great.

Speaker 1 What's my replacement value to go find something with that similar lot? And how long is it going to take?

Speaker 1 What's the cost of the capital if I'm going to have to go find a lot, pay the taxes and the maintenance for the two years it's going to take me to permit and then the two years to go and build it.

Speaker 1 And by then, I don't know, like it's 2030. Am I still going to want it by now? So what's the premium to pay for something that's in the perfect location today?

Speaker 1 And that's why you've seen real estate values really, really skyrocket. Carrying cost benefits, I know the lingo.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm an adult guy, man. I'm ready to jump ship.

Speaker 1 What,

Speaker 1 you know, when you talk about getting yelled at by a guy who can afford a $100 million house, so I assume he's, you know, a billionaire. Have you met a lot of patient billionaires?

Speaker 1 I do.

Speaker 1 You know, billionaires are either cut from two cloths, really. One, they've created the wealth on their own, and there is a level of impatience because that's how they got there in the first place.

Speaker 1 They started with a dollar, you know, and now they have all the dollars. And so they really know how to just create productivity out of time.
And it's a pretty fascinating thing to watch.

Speaker 1 Like one of the things I've noticed with most of the billionaires that I work with, and there's over a hundred of them, is they just text.

Speaker 1 I don't care how old they are, how young they are.

Speaker 1 There's the time it takes them to actually make a phone call, to be pitch something they already know, is not worth it because what's the time per minute for them?

Speaker 1 And so they just text across the board. I just sold a place in Palm Beach, all said and done, it'll be $308 million.

Speaker 1 The entire deal done over text.

Speaker 1 How can it, the property is worth $308 million?

Speaker 1 We did it for 308.

Speaker 1 But the deal in terms of the negotiation, the discussion, the comparable sales, everything is done over text. And when the buyer is foreign, it's all done over WhatsApp.

Speaker 1 And when the buyer is Asian, it's all done over WeChat. Now, the contract process, obviously, is done in email and DocuSign.
And you have title, you have escrow, you have attorneys.

Speaker 1 But the wealthier people become, the less time they have. And if it's just a purchase decision, you're doing it over text, also in part so that you can always have the record to go back to it.
Sure.

Speaker 1 You never want to say like, oh, remember we talked about that on the phone, Bob. Like, well, no, I don't remember that.

Speaker 1 So they can always scroll back and just see what you were able to put down in text yeah if you get a call from me like if i say uh we we should talk about it on the phone it's about to be some hot tea yeah like it's about to be some i don't want like yes there's gonna be yes yeah i can be implicated no i have another another billionaire client i think he's worth 15 15 16 billion dollars right now we're doing a relatively small transaction with him and he has lots of questions and it's all over text message you know and i'm like and i actually wrote back this a couple days ago i'm like you know, you can always call me.

Speaker 1 He says, sorry, don't have the time. Like, I get it, but the amount of time we're taking texting versus what we could do in like a simple phone call.

Speaker 1 And so, what I think he's actually saying is he doesn't have the time to call. He doesn't have the time to be persuaded, right?

Speaker 1 It's easier to push people off by text message as it is to then pick up a phone call and just let me do my thing, man. Let me sell you on the phone.
It's harder for me to sell you with emojis.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 my jaw is still on the floor over a 308 million dollar property in palm beach like that is like that is so like what did they buy mar-a-lago like i don't even know mar-a-lo-mar-a-lago-lago

Speaker 1 600 million bucks um uh uh no it's um again it's a couple what is it um it's like 500 feet on the sand

Speaker 1 three and a half or four acres and it was the main property and then we bought all the houses around the property for staff and for security and just for option value right at that point it's private equity like palm beach there was a big new york times article that um that i was just in for better or for worse where they talk about the islands of of palm beach right and how there's only so much of it and everyone's buying up property for option value the same way you would buy up a company which is not a really it's not a relatable thing to talk about but you know people will buy companies and then they'll go buy another company that could potentially be better or could potentially be worse or they might just shut it down and take the write-off.

Speaker 1 But I'd rather own it than let that company potentially grow up to be competition. You do the same thing in real estate.

Speaker 1 You know, you buy a house, you like it, you see the next door neighbor's house, you're like, I don't really need it. I have no, I have no use for it.

Speaker 1 But if someone else buys it and they tear it down, that's going to annoy me. And if I end up having more kids or something, you know what? I'm just going to buy it and own it.

Speaker 1 And then these guys just do it over and over and over. And then they own that option value there.
So yeah, so that's what that one looks like. Yeah.
Nuts. Totally crazy.
I get it. Completely insane.

Speaker 1 Wow. Yeah.
Imagine it's like Ryan's choice from YouTube. It's like, who's buying $108 million? It's Flippy.
And Flippy bought it.

Speaker 1 Miss Rachel's got a humble abode right on the edge of Star Island. I'm actually surprised.
Like even

Speaker 1 being in this business, you know, you do become a little bit, you become numb to it, you know, like

Speaker 1 for you guys walking around LA and seeing the types of people that you get numbed to it like it's just you know it's your town it's backyard um uh and for me just dealing with people that have this type of wealth and what they do with it day and like hey i do get a little numb to to how insane it is and like what is the value of a dollar anymore it's completely insane

Speaker 5 This episode of the Good Guys Podcast is brought to you by our friends at Cygnos.

Speaker 3 Folks, you need to be tracking what your blood sugar does when you eat certain foods because otherwise you're going to be like me. You're going to be on an award-winning podcast, podcast.

Speaker 3 A top, I don't know, one podcast, okay? So unbelievably famous. This podcast is literally so unbelievably good.

Speaker 3 That's why Cygnos decided to sponsor this episode, but you're gonna be on an award-winning podcast. Somebody's gonna give you a bagel.

Speaker 3 They're gonna give you a bagel because they know you love bagels, okay? They're not trying to sabotage you. They're gonna give you a bagel oxen cream cheese.
Maybe it's your co-host. Maybe it's Josh.

Speaker 3 He's gonna bring a gorgeous bagel ox and cream cheese, a famous bagel oxen cream cheese. He's gonna give it to you.
You're gonna eat it on the podcast. All of a sudden, you're asleep.

Speaker 3 Did he mean to sabotage? Absolutely not. They didn't mean to sabotage.
I should have known better.

Speaker 3 If I had been wearing my Cygnos, all of a sudden I would have seen that my blood sugar would have gone to the moon and then it would have crashed. Okay.
It would have crashed.

Speaker 3 And then I know, okay, I can't eat bagels on the podcast. I can't do it.
You need to know what triggers your crashes. Did you know, folks, that 73.6% of U.S.

Speaker 3 adults are classified as overweight or obese? And I'm one of them. 88% of Americans are classified as metabolically unhealthy, and I'm sure I'm one of them.

Speaker 3 And global diabetes diagnoses are projected to to reach 1.3 billion by 2050. Holy smokes, that's a lot of people.

Speaker 3 Folks, all you need to know is that while you're wearing Cygnos, you're going to learn more about what your body agrees with and what it doesn't.

Speaker 3 So I'd highly recommend getting yourself Cygnos this holiday season. Cygnos took the guesswork out of managing my weight and gave me personalized insights into how my body works.

Speaker 3 With an AI-powered app and biosensor, Cygnos helped me build healthier habits and stick to them. Right now, Cygnos has an exclusive offer for our listeners.

Speaker 3 If If you go to Cygnos.com, that's S-I-G-N-O-S.com, you get 25% off select plans with code good. That's Cygnos, S-I-G-N-O-S.com, code good for 25% off select plans today.

Speaker 5 This episode of the Good Guys podcast is brought to you by our friends at Aura Frames.

Speaker 3 Folks, what if you could give a gift that brings your favorite holiday traditions and memories to life every day? With an Aura Frame, you can.

Speaker 3 Folks, my favorite holiday tradition is making a gorgeous turkey. All right, it's not a tradition.
I did it for the first time this year, but let me tell you, this was the most gorgeous turkey.

Speaker 3 And let me tell you, we will be doing it for years to come, years to come. But a real holiday tradition is sitting around a fire in the gorgeous state of Utah with my family.

Speaker 3 And let me tell you, we've been doing it for probably, I don't know, eight years. We have so many gorgeous photos from it.
And let me tell you, where it belongs, okay?

Speaker 3 Where it belongs is with Aura because Aura has unlimited free photos and videos. Just download the Aura app and connect to Wi-Fi.
Preload photos before it chips. Keep adding from anywhere, anytime.

Speaker 3 You can personalize your gift, okay? You can add a message before it arrives in case you're sending it to your mom, in case you're sending it to your sister. They love personalized messages.

Speaker 3 And you can share photos and videos effortlessly straight from your phone all year long. The gift box is included.
Every frame comes packaged in a premium gift box with no price tag.

Speaker 3 Folks, you can't wrap togetherness, but you can frame it. You can take your photos.
I can take my gorgeous turkey. I can take my gorgeous photo of us in front of the fire.

Speaker 3 You can take a beautiful photo of grandma asleep on the couch, and you can frame it for a limited time.

Speaker 3 Visit auraframes.com and get $45 off Aura's best-selling Carver matte frames, named number one by Wirecutter, by using promo code GoodGuys a checkout. That's A-U-R-AFrames.com promo code GoodGuys.

Speaker 3 This exclusive Black Friday Cyber Monday deal is their best of the year. So order now before it ends.
Support the show by mentioning us a checkout. Terms and conditions apply.

Speaker 3 Again, folks, $45 off with code GOODGUES. Aura Frames is the perfect gift.
So you got to shop now to get those holiday savings.

Speaker 3 And this is exclusive for the $45 off Carver Mat with promo code GoodGuys at AuraFrames, A-U-R-A-F-R-A-M-E-S.com. Promo code goodguys.

Speaker 6 Hey guys, I am Bryony Bass, a Pilates teacher and the founder of Pilates by Bryony. I started my podcast Beyond the Mat Mat after having some of the most moving conversations with people on the mat.

Speaker 6 Expect full disclosure moments, life hacks to level up your life and stories that activate your dreams with no gatekeeping allowed. Listen to Beyond the Mat every Thursday, wherever you podcast.

Speaker 4 Do you get numbed to the fees too?

Speaker 4 Like, I'm just thinking, like, sorry to count your money, but like a $308 million transaction is like 60 million in fees right like do you get numb to the fees it's not no no buy side transactions yeah it's three percent so nine million three percent yeah ninety no no you're doing math so are you numb to the fees no you're doing math wrong okay

Speaker 1 so nine million yeah right right yeah um am i numb to the fees oh yeah my bad no no it's okay that's okay you can tell people i made 90 million dollars yeah 30 who you think i am a lawyer my brain my brain my brain broke for a second

Speaker 4 commission fees

Speaker 1 You know, which are a hot topic at all times, range anywhere from, let's say, 2% to 6%, unless you're in Florida or you're in like Monaco and they can get as high as 8% to 10%.

Speaker 1 But at the end of the day, it's all about the net number, right? The seller wants to take home a certain amount. The buyer wants a property.

Speaker 1 Whether the fee is X or the fee is Y, it doesn't matter if two sides are agreeing to it. And fees haven't really changed since the big commissions lawsuit that went down two years ago.

Speaker 1 If anything, they've actually gotten higher because there's no inventory, right? Rates are a problem. Inventory is a problem.
They haven't changed the capital gains tax laws. They haven't changed

Speaker 1 as a married couple filing jointly, if you were to sell a property, you can write off the first $500,000.

Speaker 1 That was said in the 1990s.

Speaker 1 There's not as many people these days, especially in urban markets, that are living in a primary residence that is worth 400 grand anymore.

Speaker 1 Your average property in the United States is worth far more than that.

Speaker 1 There's 577 cities in the United States now where the average price is over a million bucks. There's just under 300 cities in the United States alone where the starter home now is over $1.1 million.

Speaker 1 And how can people afford these types of properties, right? You know, property appreciation and kind of all tangible asset appreciation just has not increased with income.

Speaker 1 And that reckoning will come soon.

Speaker 4 They can't. And you said something that was pretty telling and scary, which is people are buying up properties in the United States that don't live here.

Speaker 4 And so eventually the people who do live here, they can't live here. Like, what, when does that happen?

Speaker 1 Like, it's, it's pretty crazy.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think it's, I think it's always been happening, but it's also to the benefit of neighborhoods and towns and cities that were not always to your point from the beginning of this talk, like tier A.

Speaker 1 There's amazing places to live where you don't have to spend millions and millions and millions of dollars, but you, but you get what you pay for, right?

Speaker 1 If you want to be three hours from a near airport, you can get a great deal on a home. You're just not going to go a lot of places.
You got to really, really love that location.

Speaker 1 And that can be okay for a lot of people. But I was thinking too about, and it's sort of a circuitous, long-winded,

Speaker 1 follow me here, right? Like, I believe like the reason New York, the reason New York became cool, right, was like in the 70s and 80s and 60s, it was the epicenter of art, right?

Speaker 1 It doesn't hurt that it's a major port city right by Newark and all these things, right?

Speaker 1 But it tends to be the cool people attract the rich people and then the rich people gentrify it and drive out the cool people, right? It's sort of like this interesting elliptical cycle. So

Speaker 1 if it's impossible to make cities like New York affordable, maybe it's possible, but it seems harder and harder every year. If all those cool people, if everyone just says, no more Bushwick.

Speaker 1 I'm not moving. We're not going there, right?

Speaker 1 Let the rich eat themselves. Let's go make, I don't know,

Speaker 1 Dayton awesome. You were obsessed with Dayton.
Let's go crush it. You love that town.
Yeah, let's go. Let's go to, where's Biden from? Scranton.
Let's make Scranton lit. Yay, let's go.

Speaker 1 Yeah, like, what if they all just said, like, no, we're not going to go there? Like, is that, does that do anything? Does that make another sense? People say that?

Speaker 1 No, if, like, the cool people go and say, like, we can afford this place and, like, let's make it cool.

Speaker 1 And let's let the rich people enjoy their like $20 lattes that are actually going to become less and less exciting. I don't think that's ever actually changed.

Speaker 1 I think from the dawn of time, New York City was run by the gangs of the rich and the gangs of the poor.

Speaker 1 They just grown, you know, exorbitantly ever since then. Like you think, like, you know, the original row houses and townhouses, the Rockefellers, the J.P.
Morgans, like, you know, J.

Speaker 1 Pierpont Morgan, you know, was building buildings for himself well before the 1970s. Right.
You know, you know, well, well, well before the artists still need to pay their bills too.

Speaker 1 You know, they still want people to buy their art. And so they want to be in a place that has a confined audience of wealthy people who like that.

Speaker 1 So Manhattan still to this day is a great place to do that. There are still affordable places to live.
I mean, it just, you have to sacrifice quality of life.

Speaker 1 And today's generation, I think every generation thereafter

Speaker 1 doesn't enjoy sacrifice as much because they don't know what it gets them anymore. There used to be a promise that sacrifice came with reward.

Speaker 1 I don't think that promise exists as much anymore, you know, especially when you can just get on your phone from Dayton, Ohio or anywhere else in the world, you know, show a little, show a little toe and maybe make some money, right?

Speaker 1 Why go learn how to paint and try to like sell it to Wall Street bankers in Manhattan anymore, right?

Speaker 1 That that art form has now moved 100% into the, into the phone and you don't have to live somewhere you don't want to anymore, which is democratized talent, I think.

Speaker 1 It's in the paper for better or for worse.

Speaker 1 But I don't think New York has actually changed. I think it's just become higher and higher and higher on both sides of that totem pole.
And you can still make areas cool.

Speaker 4 You can still make areas cool, Josh. Like I love, I mean, that's like a thing.
Like you want to move with 100 of your best friends and pick a a shittier area now.

Speaker 4 If you wait 30 years, it won't be shitty anymore. Like if you look at Deal, New Jersey, I don't know if either of you guys know what that is, but it's like the south shore of Jersey.

Speaker 4 In the 1960s, a bunch of Syrian Jews got together and said, we're moving to deal. They bought houses for 75 grand that are worth 15 million.
It's just like, it's crazy.

Speaker 1 Isn't it anti-Semitic that I thought our people went, what, it's called Deal? I'm in.

Speaker 1 No, it's not. And it's crazy.

Speaker 4 It's like, Josh, 75 grand for Oceanfront, 15 million to like 50 million today. No, but it's like, but it was nothing.
Like, that's what what I'm, that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 Where do you want to go?

Speaker 4 Let's find somewhere. I went like last year, I, I had some work that took me to Surfside, uh, Alabama, like, like on the, on the water.

Speaker 1 Like the water, the Gulf Shores of Alabama are unbelievable. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Like to your point, Ryan, they're far as fuck from an airport.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 We can get some pretty sick sandy beaches.

Speaker 1 You know, people like Oceanfront and they, they like to be incentivized. You know, you think about what's happened in Florida.
Florida is the most commercially incentivized state in the United States.

Speaker 1 Like you have oceanfront, you have probably the best tax situation.

Speaker 1 You have good schools. You have ridiculous safety for the most part.

Speaker 1 And it's actually a pretty small state because it's purely coastal. Not a whole lot of people live in the middle.

Speaker 1 It's heavily swampland

Speaker 1 when you really look at the state.

Speaker 1 And most states just don't think that way.

Speaker 1 I think

Speaker 1 their operations down there and the reason property values have increased so much is because it's governed from a point of, let's create. Let's create as much as possible.

Speaker 1 We're not going to take from anyone, we're going to create. If anything, we'll remove any hindrances to being here.
We'll just create jobs, we'll create land, we'll create reasons to be here.

Speaker 1 You know, places like New York, places like California lead from the foot of let's take. You know, there's a lot here.

Speaker 1 We're the best of the, let's, let's take as much as we can and then we'll, we'll figure it out.

Speaker 4 What happens in Florida to real estate prices if they do remove property tax? Do they just skyrocket?

Speaker 1 I don't know if they sky, I mean, they've already skyrocketed, man. Like, you know, we just, I just sold a place.
What day is it today? Monday. So I guess Friday.

Speaker 1 I think pre-COVID, this house in North Palm Beach was probably $35, $40 million.

Speaker 1 Nothing's been done to it other than just life has happened. We just sold it for $75.

Speaker 1 And the property taxes at that point, right, are roughly 2% of the value. every year.
They're not, this person's that buying that isn't really thinking about the monthly costs as much. Sure.
Right.

Speaker 1 As much. I think it will definitely increase, it'll increase

Speaker 1 property values for sure, but does it increase them in greater percentage to what we've already seen over the past five years?

Speaker 1 I'm not completely sure. At the end of the day, Florida is going to need to make their money to hit their budget anyway.
So if it's not on property taxes, it's elsewhere.

Speaker 1 Property taxes in Florida are much higher than they are in New York. Much higher than here.
Yeah, of course. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But they also,

Speaker 1 they don't charge you in other ways.

Speaker 1 They let you make money and you know put that money back into the economy and back into the system it's a hard thing because i mean i'm very pro California just because I think it's hacky that everyone shits on it even though we are deeply imperfect but like you think about like Hollywood was really brought here because of the weather yeah right it's just

Speaker 1 nothing crushes a set nothing calls for an insurance day quicker than rain yeah right if you're planning to shoot outside and so it's a shame that leadership over the last like decade and a half allowed everything to leave LA Cause there's nothing like hearing like, where does it shoot?

Speaker 1 And they're like, Montreal, LA. And you're like, I'm in.
You're like, the script's bad. I'm like, who cares?

Speaker 1 Because you get to go home to your family every night. It's amazing.
And

Speaker 1 I just don't like.

Speaker 1 If for some reason Hollywood really does, in quotes, leave LA, there'll never be another Hollywood anywhere. It just will cease to exist.

Speaker 1 And there'll be outposts around the world, London or beautiful Atlanta, like where they make stuff. Yeah.
I mean, you're seeing production studios pop up everywhere.

Speaker 1 There's, there's a new one that's being built on the west side of Manhattan right now. New Jersey.
That's never existed before. Netflix has their whole thing in New Jersey.

Speaker 1 You know, they're building everywhere. I think the idea of Hollywood never goes away.
I think the location probably just changes, kind of like everything else in the world.

Speaker 1 Wall Street, I mean, you go to the stock exchange for like the last 20 years, it's like the same four dudes.

Speaker 1 You know, they're not processing, you know, the amount of, you know, quant trades that Citadel Securities is doing. They're not doing it from the floor,

Speaker 1 but it's a moment, right? It's an idea and it becomes more symbolic than anything else. So that'll probably be what Hollywood becomes.

Speaker 1 It might become the movie premiere capital of the world and not the shooting capital of the world. Because there just have to be other places to make movies and to make content.
Wow.

Speaker 5 This episode of the Good Guys Podcast is brought to you by our friends at Vital Vitamins.

Speaker 3 Folks, do you know Vital Vitamins? If you don't, I'm about to tell you a lot about them. I love them.
And since 2018, Vital Vital Vitamins has delivered over 4 million no-nonsense supplements.

Speaker 3 They are trusted by over 400,000 customers to help them look better, feel better, and age better. All of their products are thoroughly researched, rigorously tested, and made in the USA.

Speaker 3 USA.

Speaker 3 USA. Folks, we all want to look good, stay sharp, and age as slowly as possible.
But how?

Speaker 1 But how? I'll tell you how.

Speaker 3 The age-defying bundle from Vital Vitamins fully supports those goals. We got multi-collagen complex plus.
We got brain booster plus. We got NAD Plus.

Speaker 3 We all know consistency is key for supplements to work and capsules make them so easy. No need to make a smoothie with messy, bad-tasting powders.

Speaker 3 Ew, I'm telling you folks, I've been trying vital vitamins and let me tell you, these three simple supplements that are all third-party tested and made in the USA are fantastic.

Speaker 3 I feel sharper, my skin's more gorgeous than ever, and my routine is finally consistent. Go Vital Vitamins.

Speaker 3 So folks, if you want to try them for yourself, Vital Vitamins is offering my listeners 20% off all orders with code GOODGUES at myvitalVitamins.com. That's M-Y-V-I-T-A-L-V-I-T-A-M-I-N-S dot com.

Speaker 3 Vital Vitamins, again, folks, is offering my listeners 20% off all orders with code goodguys at myvitalvitamins.com.

Speaker 5 This episode of the Good Guys podcast is brought to you by our friends at

Speaker 4 folks. You know, I'm the poster child for GLPs.

Speaker 1 Actually, my wife really is, but we both are, okay?

Speaker 4 We're both the poster children. And let me tell you, holy smokes, this stuff changed my life.
It absolutely changed my life. I had food noise forever.

Speaker 4 I would eat an entire foot-long sandwich, and all of a sudden my brain would say, Ben, you need two more. No, I don't need two more.
I went on GLPs and I feel like a human being again.

Speaker 4 And it's not just me, okay? Everybody, everybody, everybody for different reasons could need GLPs and you should obviously do it through Roe, okay? Roe has a free insurance checker.

Speaker 4 You're going to go to row.co slash good and you're going to see if you are covered by insurance. And let me tell you, if you're covered by insurance, holy smokes, you get it for a deal and you get it.

Speaker 4 Even if it's not covered, you should still get it. But of course, we want to make sure that it's covered by insurance.

Speaker 4 So you're going to go to row.co slash good to check if your GLPs are going to be covered by insurance.

Speaker 4 Let me tell you, when I say everyone, I was in a cab the other day in the city and all of a sudden my driver starts talking to me about how he just lost 100 pounds. How did he lose 100 pounds?

Speaker 3 GLPs.

Speaker 4 How did he lose 100 pounds? GLPs through Roe. That's right.
My cab driver went to row.co slash good. Okay, I don't know if he went slash good, but he went to row.co.

Speaker 4 went on the insurance checker, got prescribed, and it changed his life. And it can absolutely change yours.
So go to row.co slash good because it's not just about losing weight.

Speaker 4 It's about having more mental clarity. It's about being able to get up for your family.
It's about having energy, folks, energy and looking svelte. Don't I look svelte?

Speaker 4 Roe.co slash good to look svelte. Go to roe.co slash good to see if your insurance will cover your GLP ones for free.

Speaker 4 Go to roe.co slash safety for box warning and full information on GLP1 medications.

Speaker 4 What do you prefer, the content side or just like the actual nuts and bolts of real estate?

Speaker 4 Like if you said that you're on a call, you're selling properties, like like that you obviously have, I would assume that you have to love it to want to be on camera or is it just a marketing tool?

Speaker 4 Like what do you prefer?

Speaker 1 I think I'm

Speaker 1 this guy's an actor. He started out as a hand model.
You know this?

Speaker 1 Look at the, I wish you could see these nail beds. Let me see those hands.
Let me see. I want to take, I want to sleep in those nail beds.
Wow. I think

Speaker 4 that's a beautiful hand. Beautiful.

Speaker 1 Said from the guys whose podcast is recorded in the building where they also have Grinder. I appreciate that selection.
Grinder here? You don't know that? Grinder keeps getting downloaded on my phone.

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 1 What are you talking about? Our driver pulled up, and he's like, Is this the building? And all it says outside, you know, for you to go in is just Grinder and huge letters.

Speaker 1 I'm like, Josh, this is 100% the building. That's my

Speaker 1 shout out.

Speaker 1 Shout out to my wife and my sham marriage.

Speaker 1 Who downloaded that? What a lavender, what a lavender relationship you have.

Speaker 1 Who downloaded Grinder on my phone?

Speaker 1 I think I, as a, like, I personally need both, like the, the creative and the content and the show. So, like, you know, Owning Manhattan and Netflix gives you a lot of freedom just to play.

Speaker 1 Like they, you know, they, they need to create so much content.

Speaker 1 So unlike million dollar listing on Bravo or any of the other Bravo TV shows I did, which were all like, this is the law and order format of real estate. This is the law and order format of.

Speaker 1 Housewives, right? Where you're just hitting formats so that when it plays and reruns all over the world, someone can turn it on any season, any episode, and they don't have to leave.

Speaker 1 They 100% get it. Netflix is the opposite.
You need to go find it at all times.

Speaker 1 There's no reruns, right? So

Speaker 1 the lack of the rerun commercialization has totally changed how content has been created.

Speaker 1 And to keep on platform is where that hook and cliffhanger, hook and cliffhanger, hook and cliffhanger, you know, and the fact that episodes aren't hours anymore. They're all sub 40 minutes, right?

Speaker 1 Because they want to get you to completion.

Speaker 1 You know, it's all about completion rate, hook and cliffhanger, hook and cliffhanger, and tell that story, which means we get to kind of have more fun because I don't have to stick with a certain format.

Speaker 1 But the part of my brain that enjoys the content side, I think wouldn't be fulfilled or legitimized or have any credibility if the other part of my brain that enjoyed building business existed.

Speaker 1 And I think that you've got to kind of find that balance. And most people do just in their own ways.

Speaker 1 You know, my little brother's a banker and he has a local gym for group fitness classes in Walpole, Massachusetts. And that's like, he loves that, right? That's one part of the brain.

Speaker 1 And then he goes and he, you know, raises money for pension funds or whatever he does all day, you know, Monday through Friday. So I like being able to do both.

Speaker 1 And I like that our medium is so visual that I am able to

Speaker 1 walk that fine line, you know, and it's become more acceptable over the past couple of years than it was, at least at the beginning of my career.

Speaker 1 It was very goofy and took a lot of hate for it early on. But

Speaker 1 slowly but surely, I'll kill everyone and I'll just win. How is his million-dollar listing done? The franchise over? Yeah, we ended in 2020.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 Only Manhattan came out last year. So

Speaker 1 2022, we ended it because I started my own company and it just wasn't format anymore. Like I had that conversation with Bravo and Sherry Levine and the whole and the whole crew.

Speaker 1 And it was like, the show is

Speaker 1 three, four, five realtors, however many we're going to follow. It's an occupational docuseries.
Every episode is 44 minutes of content. So 60 minutes with 16 minutes of commercials.

Speaker 1 It can air all over the world. And we follow you as you get a property, you have a messy middle, and then you either sell it or get removed from it.
And every episode has got to be a new one, right?

Speaker 1 It's a new reason. You know, it's like quantum leap.
Where's he going to go this time? I love it. What a throwback show.
But anyway. I love, I love million dollar listing.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm, I'm the, I'm the guy. I'm the, I'm the, the girl who watches SVU before she goes to bed.
It's like, it's a comfort show.

Speaker 1 I've seen every app. Yeah, thanks.
I'm a fan. Yeah.
So it, um, I love, yeah, all, all those real estate shows are amazing.

Speaker 4 My, honestly, my favorite, sorry, Ryan, love it or list it. My God, that show, is it TLC?

Speaker 1 No, I think that's Love It or List It. I think, isn't it HGTV?

Speaker 1 Yeah, they're parent channels. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Oh, my, oh, my God. Is that a terrible show, but it's so interesting.
Yeah. You just like watch these people in the middle of nowhere like pick a, pick a terror.

Speaker 1 You talk about a format.

Speaker 4 You like pick from these like three shitty houses and they end up picking the house that you never like that they shouldn't have picked.

Speaker 4 And you know that they don't, do they even end up buying those houses, Ryan?

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 1 Do they buy the houses? Did they ever really get married for a long time? I just had the cast of the golden bachelor in my office and the one woman I thought got married.

Speaker 1 And she's like, no, no, it was annulled. I was like, annulled, how, how quick did that go? She's like, 29 days.
Hell yeah. Yeah, but on TV for the world.
That was real love.

Speaker 1 you know oh yeah yeah for sure no i've seen some people that open houses a million dollar listing for like you know 10 million dollar penthouses i'm like dog you work at the boxing gym in fi dye and i just saw you literally steal someone's iphone like you do not have 10 mil

Speaker 1 for this escrow um

Speaker 1 the dream the dream's alive though the dream's alive all the shows are done right aren't all the million dollar like la's done Yeah, LA finished.

Speaker 1 I'm not, I'm not too sure, you know, kind of what happened there.

Speaker 1 I know for, for, for a fact, though, hours, like just the format changed and it wasn't a, and I bring up the law and order, you know, analogy because that's what they said to me.

Speaker 1 They're like, now imagine if you were watching season 11 of Million Dollar Listing New York and you turned it on, you want to see, you know, the three of you go at it, but one of you has decided to start his own detective agency.

Speaker 1 It just breaks format, right? It breaks format. At which point I said, okay, got it.

Speaker 1 It doesn't make sense to do this show anymore. No problem.
The woman who cast me in 2010, her name is Jen Levy, and she had gone over to unscripted to Netflix.

Speaker 1 So within like four minutes, the broker that I am called her. I was like, hey, I have an idea.

Speaker 1 Let's, let's, let's, you need a New York City real estate show on Netflix that'll play well all over the world. I have a show.
It's called House of Surhant.

Speaker 1 I was just making it up as I was going, right? Brokering the dream, the idea. I have this building in Soho.
I started my own company.

Speaker 1 We should follow the goings on of the agents in this office, but it'll be more about deals. I want it to be a deal show, not just a listing show.
So people who like deals, they like entrepreneurship.

Speaker 1 And it'll be like, you know, what happens if succession met Vanderpump rules? You know, what does that look like? And they're like, I don't know if that show should exist. I'm like, it should.

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 1 we shot the reel and then, you know, we pitched it to them and went forward with it. And then that then turned out to be Oni Manhattan.

Speaker 1 And that's how that went down. And it's happened incredibly quickly.
Yeah. Now season two is here and

Speaker 1 it's probably the greatest TV show in the history of the world next to yours. What we hear more and more, right, is like the American suburbs was created by the car companies, right?

Speaker 1 Like the idea that we were never supposed to, for thousands of years, we lived in these small little tight areas.

Speaker 1 And because we all had to borrow and share the same resource, and then the car companies in the 50s were like, nah, nah, nah, let's build out, let's sell the American dream.

Speaker 1 You need property, you need things. And this way you have to drive there and you have to drive into major cities.
And so this cohabitation, you know,

Speaker 1 in some ways, it's as loserly as we all are thinking right now, which I agree with kids not moving out to they're in their 30s. It's like, get it together.

Speaker 1 But then also in so many parts of the world that that is a bit of the norm right like so what i don't know

Speaker 1 good bad i don't know the american in me goes bad bad bad bad but i don't know yeah because we've we've been conditioned to do that i mean think about any of the products we get sold to make our lives better from hey go get a student loan even though we have no idea how you ever pay it back to go get a higher education to go get a job we don't know if you're ever going to get that's ever going to pay you enough to be able to pay off this loan but just go do it so you can pay us the fees right or the i mean the home loan i sell, you know, we sell mortgages all day long to be able to enable people to afford homes they ordinarily without cash be able to afford.

Speaker 1 But the home loan is just as a product, right?

Speaker 1 It's just a product created by the banks to, how do we monetize real estate, which before home loans was not a monetized product other than potentially, you know, renovations and things like that.

Speaker 1 Do you have the money to buy it or not? And think about everything now has become productized, you know, with buy now, pay later across the board, after pay.

Speaker 1 All these companies are just huge because they're jumping onto the fact that people have less income than ever before. And they're saying, but if you still want that taco, buy now, pay later.

Speaker 1 And they're just going to rack up. You know, it's not just going to be American debt.
It's going to be global, global debt. I like buy now, pay later.
People are doing buy now. Yeah, buy now, pay 80.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Buy now, pay possibly.

Speaker 1 Sorry, Ben.

Speaker 4 People are doing, people are doing payover time on everything now. Like you literally go to check out on like something very small and there's like an option to do, I don't know, like,

Speaker 1 I guess an option. Five equal payments of $1.50, right? For something that costs $4.
Like really small though.

Speaker 4 Like, yeah, like I, I forget what I was looking at on Amazon where it was like pay over time. It's like for, for something that's $100.
Like, and it's not an essential.

Speaker 4 Like, I was just like surprised. Just feels like it's like preying on.
on people. But what if we, it's so interesting.

Speaker 1 Mortgage is a product.

Speaker 4 Like if we just eliminated mortgages, it'll never happen. But like all of a sudden you could only buy what you could afford.

Speaker 1 Yeah. You'd still have to live

Speaker 1 stabilize. Yeah.
You'd all have to live much, much, much smaller and you'd have to live within your means, which is far, far, far healthier.

Speaker 1 You know, I don't necessarily, I think there's, it's very easy to like point your big, your finger at the banks and at capitalism.

Speaker 1 But at the end of the day, if you're educated, you try not to make bad decisions for yourself.

Speaker 1 It all starts with education. It all starts with how we educate kids.
How do you educate kids about money, about math, about the world, the good, bad, the ugly,

Speaker 1 and a lack of great kind of national education has put us to this point because people just don't know better, right? Obviously, you go towards the shiny object.

Speaker 1 That's the cheapest, whether it's something that's $2 or something that's a million dollars.

Speaker 1 And that, like, you know, I don't know. We'll see where we go.
Yeah. It's interesting that it's

Speaker 1 It's such an aspirational thing, right? It is that American dream. It's like, well, I will be doing better better in 10 years.

Speaker 1 So as such, I choose to live that way or I'll invest in the dream of that. And it's come true for at least enough people to sort of prove it to be right.

Speaker 1 But of course, we see so few cases of when it doesn't go right.

Speaker 1 And I think in other parts of the world, they kind of say like, if I make $80,000 a year today and I'm in my 30s, there's a good chance I won't make more than that.

Speaker 1 And so I should construct my life around what I'm making today instead of what I hope to be making when I'm 50. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I think a good question for people to ask themselves is, especially now, right, is when you wake up, are you waking up to feel happy or are you waking up to feel important?

Speaker 1 Right. And I think there's an epidemic right now of the idea that importance draws a direct line to happiness.
And it's just not the case.

Speaker 1 Imagine if people didn't feel like they had to feel important in some way, shape, or form, and they could only just focus on being happy. how much, how much better the world would be.

Speaker 1 You find the billionaires you work with, what's the slope of happy? Like, what's the graph looking like? Mostly happy, some happy? Yeah, I don't,

Speaker 1 I definitely meet a lot of very happy billionaires. That is for sure.
The ones who have a relative idea of success. Like I was on a client in May in

Speaker 1 the south of France. They had a new boat and they asked me if we could come.
I had no plans to go to France, but we're like, yes, we will.

Speaker 1 And it's like an aircraft carrier. I've never been on anything like it in my entire life.

Speaker 1 It's like $250 million.

Speaker 1 The craziest thing I've ever seen. And I will tell you,

Speaker 1 I've never been fucking happier. Like on that boat.

Speaker 1 I just like, you know, you get in and you're like, you know, not everybody, not everybody should have one of these. I have never.

Speaker 1 I was like,

Speaker 1 why?

Speaker 1 Why would I not work myself to death to also potentially have one of these things? This is, there's, you know, it's like, what is it, like Daniel Tosh, right?

Speaker 1 He's got that joke from like his original stand-up, like, you can't not smile when you're on a jet ski. You know, not everyone gets one, but when you're on it, like, just try, try not smiling.

Speaker 1 You know, you're like, you know, no, life is actually pretty good.

Speaker 1 Listen, happiness is relative. You know, I know a lot of people who have no money or the happiest people of all time.

Speaker 1 I know a lot of people who have tons of money who are, you know, incredibly, incredibly unhappy. Think about any, you know, musician or actor we've all known of.

Speaker 1 You're like, man, that person's life is amazing. You know, why would Kirk Gobain kill himself? It doesn't make any sense, right? He's God to so many people.

Speaker 1 So I think it's just about finding relative happiness and then what you can do with the money to make the world a better place.

Speaker 1 But you have to just remember what is that muscle that got that person to that place if it wasn't gifted to them, if it wasn't inherited and they really, really had to fight for it.

Speaker 1 You know, and there's a lot of people in tech who, by the way, whether they were in the right place or at the right time, they came from a different place of the world. They had an idea.

Speaker 1 They were good at math and they figured it out. And life just sort of found a way to reward themselves for it.

Speaker 1 But they had to really, really hustle and the hustle never goes away. It's like a bodybuilder, right?

Speaker 1 You see them way later in life and they're, they're oftentimes just really, really fat because what got them there, right?

Speaker 1 It's that compulsive, you know, disorder of being addicted to doing so many things every single day to get them to that point. And they just still want that steak.
They need all the steak. Right.

Speaker 1 The hunger never goes away. The stomach doesn't adjust.
Your time in the gym might adjust. Same thing for people who are incredibly, incredibly wealthy, right?

Speaker 1 They, the, the hunger to win and the hunger for more just doesn't change. So I see a lot of those guys start 15 different companies.

Speaker 1 They hate it every single time, but they just don't know another way to move.

Speaker 4 I'm not shocked that you said that you enjoyed the $250 million boat.

Speaker 4 Like, I don't, I don't think that there's anybody in the world that wouldn't, but I wonder if owning it would give you the same pleasure.

Speaker 4 Like at least for me, like I would absolutely love to be on a private plane. I don't want to own a private plane and deal with it.

Speaker 4 You know, like there are some of those luxuries, even as you're talking about owning an apartment in Manhattan, all of the, like the list of things that you went through, I love having a landlord because I get to tell him that my dishwasher is broken and I don't have to deal with it.

Speaker 4 I like telling him that like, like there, there are so many, like maybe this is just like a personal thing. Like I love experiencing luxuries.

Speaker 1 I don't want to own that luxury. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Because it's then, it's then not a luxury.

Speaker 1 It's a job.

Speaker 4 Like I don't, I don't want the job of owning a boat and parking a boat and having like, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 Like, but the best part is once you're at that level, you don't. There is no job.
That job is someone else's problem. You never actually think about it.

Speaker 1 Like you never are concerned with the cost of gas. People bring that up when they don't have these things.

Speaker 1 They talk about, oh, but the cost of men, this, that, the other, the brain damage of you don't even think about it. You don't, it's not even a concern.

Speaker 1 It's wrapped up into the total kind of purchase price, if you will. I'm going to own a boat.
What does it cost yearly to dock this thing, to fuel this thing, to staff this thing?

Speaker 1 So it's the cost of the boat plus the annual coverage. I have an entire staff of 30 people who just deal with it.
I never want to deal with it ever. Don't ever even bring me a problem, right?

Speaker 1 I've made it to this point in life where I don't have to think it through.

Speaker 4 This is interesting because, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.

Speaker 1 No, no, no.

Speaker 1 That's just like, that's something i think you know i think people think about sometimes but they but they oftentimes don't really appreciate that the the minutiae the brain damage of the work to own luxury items actually doesn't exist i mean you see it all the time whether it's bill gates or kim kardashian recently being like i want to i wish i knew what the cost of a carton of milk was it's like a carton first of all

Speaker 1 hell yeah yeah solid

Speaker 4 josh before you brought up just like the happiness of like a billionaire like are, are they really happy?

Speaker 4 And I think what's interesting is like they're the people that you're describing that can own a $250 million boat and not care about carrying costs are very, that's like, that's like the 1% of the 1% of the 1% of billionaires.

Speaker 4 And then you just look at like the average billionaire that's trying to keep up with that billionaire, who actually like quietly is worried about his $100 million a year and random carrying costs.

Speaker 4 And he's probably very fucking stressed and very unhappy because even though he has so much money, he has nowhere near the money that Ryan just mentioned. And it's just, it's just interesting.

Speaker 4 Like that's like a, it's another level of wealth.

Speaker 1 That's not a billion dollars, but that's, that's a hundred billion dollars.

Speaker 4 That's like,

Speaker 4 it's crazy. That's crazy.

Speaker 1 You also have to be careful, though. Like, I love the phrase, like, don't let your luxuries become necessities.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And so speaking in a much smaller, like, if you're a guy who can do a PJ most of the time, but for whatever reason, it doesn't work out, or they're all being reserved for Coachella.

Speaker 1 And you're like, I have to take Delta One. It's like, I

Speaker 1 like,

Speaker 1 dude, nothing's worse than being on a being on a commercial flight and you see a family get on with a little kid and the kid turns around and says, mommy, why are there other people on our plane?

Speaker 1 So good.

Speaker 1 That's the goal.

Speaker 1 But like, that's a kid who's going to be, a kid's going to have a tough life. A nightmare.
Yeah,

Speaker 1 hard to impress. Hard to impress.

Speaker 1 Like, I've been lucky enough to get a couple rides in someone else's PJ before it, but the thing I was most impressed by like i was like wow what a goal was burt chreischer on his instagram the other day was showing that he had to take southwest somewhere like it just was the smartest option so he paid for the seat next to him just so he didn't have to worry about anyone like cramping up on him i'm like now that is a goal yeah i was like Bert, wow, you are operating on a high level.

Speaker 1 Flying for a family of four, but you buy eight tickets just because. Yeah, that's it.
Yeah, that's it. Or like you just get the row in front of you so your kids can kick the shit out of them.

Speaker 1 Yeah, this flight is commercial for everyone else. Yeah, you know, that's kind of, I'm like, now that that's something I would strive for.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Have you, what's, is there a story of someone, have you observed billionaires being petty in certain ways?

Speaker 1 Like, is there, or like when you work with super wealthy clients, are you ever surprised by them being petty about certain things? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yes, of course. But it's not, it's, it's, it's less petty.
I'm right. It's like my fee.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's less petty. It's more.

Speaker 1 I'd say it's less petty. It's more principle.

Speaker 1 Like we had a transaction once. It was a deal I was doing over FaceTime in the Hamptons for $40 million.

Speaker 1 And it was a big price to pay for that house at the time. And the deal was $40 million for the house, everything included.
Furniture, sheets, everything. The only exclusions were like.

Speaker 1 family items like photos and things like that and art, right? So the art was really expensive. So they're going to take that art out.
So we're doing the contract, we're going back and forth.

Speaker 1 Took me a long time to get the deal done. I had the buyer, okay? Another agent represented the seller.
Lots of ego. When you're doing deals like that, you're basically negotiating between two kings.

Speaker 1 You talk about the stress the billionaire has against, oh, but I'm not worth 10. Like that happens in real estate transactions too.
You know, like, well, who's the seller?

Speaker 1 Who's the, why are they selling? So anyway, so that's the transaction we're going through. And the seller's agent calls me and says, hey, we're making one comment to the contract's not a big deal.

Speaker 1 We just, we're going to remove the pizza oven from the backyard.

Speaker 1 And there's like a blanket or something inside that we're just going to remove. And I think any other agent would say, yeah, okay, maybe try to bring it by the buyer and it wouldn't be a big deal.

Speaker 1 But I just, I know how these guys think. You know, I've been doing this for almost 20 years.
It's like, just so you know, we have a deal. It's 40 million.

Speaker 1 Everything in the house is included except family's photo, photos of the family and the art.

Speaker 1 If you want me to go back to my guy now and say, oh, by the way, they forgot about their pizza oven and a blanket,

Speaker 1 what my buyer is going to say is, okay, well, what else did they forget about? What else are they being disingenuous about? I'm paying a huge price for this property.

Speaker 1 You're going to come back to me then another time and then another time. And then I'm going to be at the closing table and you're going to hit me with, oh, but I totally forgot.

Speaker 1 My mom's forks are in there. It's going to be one thing after the other.
You know what? You keep your pizza oven and your blankie. I'm going to keep my $40 million.
Go fuck yourself. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And the seller's agent was like, no, no, no. I'm like, I'm telling you, man, if I do that, I go to him, that's what's going to happen.
That's exactly what happened.

Speaker 1 I, you know, after, I'm fully above board, went to the buyer and said, just so you know, they're coming back on this. And he immediately switched his tune.
It was no longer about buying the house.

Speaker 1 It was about what's not coming with the house anymore. Right.
So the mindset completely changes. Instead of buying the property, it's now, what are they not giving me? I don't need this house.

Speaker 1 You start talking themselves out of it. So I had already had a plan in place where he didn't care about pizza anyway, but they were going to have to leave the blanket.
right?

Speaker 1 And my guy never even saw the house. He bought the house over FaceTime.
Wow.

Speaker 1 So it's not like he knew where the blanket was or what the blanket was, but because everything was itemized on a Schedule B to the contract, it was going to be an omission, right?

Speaker 1 A strikethrough on that next contract revision.

Speaker 1 And so, right, so I then had to go back to the seller and the seller's agent and say, listen, I talked to my guy who's as upset as I told you he was going to be.

Speaker 1 Pizza oven, you can take by all means, but that blanket has to stay. And the seller came came back.
We're like, Well, we forgot it's from like our dead grandmother.

Speaker 1 She survived the something, something, something. We're like, Great, give her, have her, have her make a new one.
Like, no, she died. Like, I don't know what to tell you.

Speaker 1 We're not buying this house without that blanket. Anyway, you can keep the oven.

Speaker 1 I want nanosa.

Speaker 1 It was, it was, it sounds ridiculous to tell the story.

Speaker 1 It's unbelievable.

Speaker 1 But it's, but at the end of the day, they left the blanket. They left the blanket.
And

Speaker 1 I don't think my, my guy that I sold that house to has ever even touched said blankets. It was just about the principal.
So that's like the first story that comes to mind.

Speaker 4 Did you have a picture of the blanket? Like

Speaker 1 brown,

Speaker 1 like it's just like it wasn't, if anything, if I was being disingenuous, I would have said, fine, just get the deal done. Take it, but don't tell anyone.
I'm just going to buy a new blanket.

Speaker 1 What's a blanket? That's what I thought you were going to say.

Speaker 1 No, I've done that before i've replaced items before always and i paid for we're selling an apartment right now on central park um uh it's 22 million dollars okay it's a two-bedroom apartment for 22 million dollars okay

Speaker 1 on the park it's an incredible apartment again same thing fully for post covet everyone wants everything fully furnished no one wants to go through the brain damage like you were just talking about and if you can buy a two-bedroom apartment as a pied de terre part-time residence for 22 million dollars right you just want everything taken care of so it's a staged apartment staged furniture it's all rented so the seller agreed right because they're just gonna buy the furniture from the staging company but they gotten all the art in the apartment from from you know a gallery just to make it look really really beautiful and that was always a line item it was like the art's not included you know that was very very clear the buyer when it came down to sign the contract is i don't see the art in the contract we're like well yeah no because it's not included it's art it's you're buying the apartment like i want everything in the apartment if i'm going to buy this apartment and pay this price in new york city right now i want everything included, or I'm not doing the deal.

Speaker 1 Like, oh my God,

Speaker 1 every time, you know, just every, every time. And so, on that one, I bought the art.
It wasn't, it wasn't, the seller wasn't going to do it because it wasn't even theirs.

Speaker 1 I couldn't have the Nana conversation. The buyer wasn't going to do it.
It was a stalemate. It was staged art, like from a stage art from

Speaker 1 a gallery, from a gallery. It was real art.
Oh, really? Yeah, it was real art. Prints or originals or lithographs?

Speaker 1 Not original. I didn't, no, it wasn't like Picasso's.

Speaker 1 But it was like

Speaker 1 tens of thousands in art. Yeah, it was like $90,000 worth of art that they kind of put around the entire property.
But then it's just, it's a business decision for me.

Speaker 1 Like I never let a deal die over a couple percentage points. And it's all about for me, how much you've sold at the end of the year.

Speaker 1 Like when I first got into the business as a real estate agent, probably the best piece of advice, but also the worst piece of advice, because it completely messed me up, is you're only as good as your 1099.

Speaker 1 That's it. Doesn't matter how much you sell, how much you said you sell, whatever you put on the internet, the only thing you are worth is your 1099 tax, tax return.

Speaker 1 And that like stuck into my DNA,

Speaker 1 probably for the worst, because I probably get far less joy out of life because I'm just chasing that number every year.

Speaker 1 So, but for me, it's, I'd rather do the deal and buy some art than ever have my ego get in the way or ever have principle be an issue.

Speaker 4 Have you ever had a situation where you've bought the art and then they don't buy the apartment?

Speaker 1 No, no, no, no, because it's all attached to the closing. Like I would never, it's all, it's all done at the closing table.
I would never do anything like that.

Speaker 1 That then, like, oh, whoops, they didn't show it.

Speaker 4 So you, so for that, it's like fully closed, including the art, and then you go and buy the art partition.

Speaker 1 That's part of the deal.

Speaker 1 And oftentimes, what you'll just do is it's not like cash out of pocket. It's a reduction in the commission.
So I don't know what's the commission on it. So it's like,

Speaker 1 what is it?

Speaker 1 I guess it's like, you know, $600,000, something like that, less 90.

Speaker 1 So that makes sense when I say it that way, but you'd be surprised how many people in my business are like, no, I'm not doing that. I'm not taking that out of my pocket.

Speaker 1 For me, it's like, but it's not in your pocket. It's the process of putting a deal together and doing what's best for the deal.

Speaker 1 And I've always told people, and I lose business this way a lot of times. Like if you say, Ryan, I want to sell my house, I'll be incredibly clear.

Speaker 1 Like, you're hiring me to sell your house for the best possible price. I don't work for you, though.
And I don't work for the buyer either. I work for the deal.

Speaker 1 And I think there's a real difference in kind of like the career that I've been able to build working for the deal at all times and not just like, hey, Josh, I'm in your court.

Speaker 1 Cause that could mean that I'm just going to listen to you at all the time. And maybe you don't know what's right in the moment.
You know, you're like, no, raise the price or no, keep the pizza oven.

Speaker 1 And I'll be like, whatever Josh says, I work for Josh or whatever the buyer says, I just work for the buyer. You work for the deal through in, throughout.
Should we get to what are you nuts?

Speaker 1 Yeah, love it.

Speaker 1 All right. So our final segment is our what are you nuts moment of the week, our gripes with people, places, and things, both big and small, whatever's sticking in your craw.

Speaker 1 You can have time to think. It's just anything right now that's making you say, what are you nuts? It could be absolutely anything.
We'll go first.

Speaker 1 Take your time, think about it. Okay, got it.
All right. Yep.

Speaker 1 Benny, you want to go? I'm going to look at my notes. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I'll go. So yesterday was the New York City Marathon.
A beautiful day, joyous occasion. People, personal bests, they hand out medals, Ryan.
I'm sure you've seen them.

Speaker 4 Today, walking around the street, I saw a lot of people in their work clothes wearing their medal. And I'm sorry to me, that's a what are you nuts?

Speaker 4 Like the statute of limitations for wearing your marathon medal is after the marathon. And then the medal goes home.

Speaker 1 It maybe goes on your wall. Maybe you have a hook.

Speaker 4 Maybe you put it in some nice casing, but you can't wear your medal to work. What are you nuts? It's over.
It's done. It's kaput.

Speaker 1 What a statement. I'm better than you on a Monday.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 That was your Sunday. No, the

Speaker 4 guy in the suit fully walking down Lexington Avenue, full marathon medal.

Speaker 1 It's like, all right, all right, Chad. We get it.
Yeah, yeah. We get it, Chad.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 The other day,

Speaker 1 Chad.

Speaker 1 My woody nuts is on the other day. It was, it was Halloween.
And I went to lunch at my wonderful friend, the Rosenthal's friends, friends of the show, Phil Rosenthal and Lily Rosenthal.

Speaker 1 Have a new restaurant called Max and Helens, a diner, a Marchmont. Gotta go.
In LA, so damn good. And I'm leaving and I'm on a food high and I'm walking down the street and it's Halloween.

Speaker 1 And so I see this,

Speaker 1 you know, 20-something girl walking by and I go, ma, Billie Eilish. And she goes, huh? It was just a girl in a backwards cap.

Speaker 1 What am I not?

Speaker 1 She was just wearing a backwards baseball cap.

Speaker 1 Really bad.

Speaker 4 That is so funny. That's like asking a woman when she's expecting.
She's just eating good.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Is it a boy or a girl? She looks cool.
It's my lunch. That's what it was.
It was my lunch. With the balloons and everything.

Speaker 1 I don't have like a specific thing off the top of my head right now. Although the hotel I checked into last night took me three rooms, but two rooms were

Speaker 1 really, really smelled of cigarette smoke. And it's very rare that I have that issue where I check into a hotel room and it smells a cigarette smoke and I go downstairs.

Speaker 1 I'm like, hey, sorry, it's just not my, not my vibe. You're like, no, we have one better.
And it's like worse smelling of cigarettes. Was your hotel in Glendale?

Speaker 1 No, no, it's whatever, whatever was by your house.

Speaker 1 Wherever that is. No, I guess my what are your nuts is this is such like an office thing for me.
Like, I, and this happens to me every single day

Speaker 1 where people say, can we just put that into email? And then they don't read email. It's probably like my biggest pet peeve of the year.

Speaker 1 It's when people ask to have things put into writing and then don't actually read what has been put into writing. And I think there should be like, you know, capital punishment for people like that.

Speaker 1 Like it's, it's, I don't think it's, I don't think it's okay anymore to like tell people, sorry, I'm just, I'm bad at texting.

Speaker 1 Like the amount of people that I talk to, especially younger people, it's like, oh, I just don't. Yeah, I'm just, I'm just bad at email.
I'm like, motherfucker, you told me to put it into email.

Speaker 1 I need you to go outside, go out back. There's a truck.

Speaker 1 The door's open just get in there and i'll never see you ever again and i think that's okay there's too many people on this planet anyway that's why rent's too damn high yeah mass kidnapping what are you nuts yeah ryan's

Speaker 1 just went

Speaker 1 no jackson's like finally we're talking about something clippable here

Speaker 1 yeah something i can use against him yeah down the line

Speaker 1 yes yes yes

Speaker 4 oh ryan this has been wonderful thank you for joining us uh thanks for having me what else can we what can we tell the people before we wrap?

Speaker 1 Only Manhattan season two, Netflix, December 5th, greatest TV show ever. Honestly, I think

Speaker 1 it's a great, great arc. And it's like very different from the first season.

Speaker 1 So if you like real estate shows, if you like entrepreneurial shows, if you like shows that just really, really stress you out, but are also sexy, fun, and cool,

Speaker 1 it's a good one. I love them.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I know it.

Speaker 4 I'll be watching over the holidays. And I'm sure, Josh, you are too.
Folks, Ryan Serhant, this episode is five stars. Otherwise, what are you nuts? Listen to us wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 4 Watch us on YouTube, share our clips, Instagram, and TikTok.

Speaker 1 Mondays and Thursdays, folks, we will see you next time.

Speaker 7 Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services.

Speaker 7 Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.