Hey everyone, I had the pleasure of talking with
Ryan Serhant, an absolute rock star in the real
estate industry. We talk about a number of different
things, including a steel cage match between
him and Robert Reffkin. Who walks out a winner?
Stay tuned to hear. Hey, everyone. This episode
is brought to you by Lofty, the agentic AI operating
system for real estate. Lofty's AI doesn't wait
to be prompted. It works proactively on behalf
of your agents to uncover new listing opportunities,
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top producer. Visit lofty .com to see how agentic
AI can put your business growth on autopilot.
Everybody in the business of home has a pitch.
Almost nobody gets asked a hard question. This
show fixes that. Welcome to Signal. I'm your
host, Inman CEO Tom Bohn. Each week we sit down
with top producing agents, industry CEOs, prop
tech founders, and the people shaping the future
of the business of home. Then we break down the
week's biggest headlines and decide what's Signal
and what's Noise. Let's get into it. Hey, everyone.
My guest built a brokerage from zero to nearly
a thousand agents in five years, turned a Netflix
show into a recruiting engine, and just told
the industry that the whole future comes down
to two names, Compass and Ryan Serhant. Ryan,
welcome to The Signal. Really appreciate your
time today. Thank you so much for having me.
And we actually crossed on Friday, 2044 agents,
by the way. 2044 agents. Congratulations. That's
amazing. Before we get into your incredible success,
truly in real estate, I need to ask a question
that's on a lot of people's minds. You start
as Dr. Evan Walsh on As the World Turns, an evil,
murderous doctor. How much of the real Ryan Serhant
is in that role? Oh, gosh. You know, he was incredibly
ambitious. I think I share in some of Dr. Walsh's
ambition. But he was ambitious at all costs,
which is why he murdered a bunch of people and
then his grandmother killed him. Yes. Which was
also known in the actor world as being fired
from a job. That's how they do it. I remember
getting that script and reading it. And then
it was like, Evan Walsh takes syringe to the
chest wrestling with Lucinda, his grandmother.
And then it's just it. And I'm like, wait, but
then what happens there? It's like, no, you die.
Like, OK, but then what about tomorrow? No, you
know, you die. You're done. What about like no
more work from like it? It took a second. Like
it was like a little bit. It was it was shocking.
It was it was that was a hard one. So my son's
an actor in the Upper East Side of Manhattan
as well. How long before he's working for Ryan
Serhant as a realtor? Listen, I, you know, the
realtor thing for me was not abnormal. There's
a lot of people who go into arts, theater, music,
you name it. And they try to figure out how to
make money on the side so they can serve. five
and support themselves and buy ramen and do all
the things. And if their parents aren't supporting
them financially, and some are some, you know,
for me, you looked at my checkbook. Yeah. Then
you have to get a survival job. You wait tables,
you bartend, you do all those things. But when
you're you're you're an artist, a big part of
what you're doing is selling yourself. So as
an actor, you're selling your I'm going to rooms
with people who don't know me. They don't necessarily
want to know me. They judge me in three seconds
just based on how I look. And then second four
and five is the sound of my voice. So I got five
seconds to change a potentially poor first impression.
And then I go to try to convince them just using
the tool that is my human form that I should
be worth their dollars and their reputation.
That's hard. And that is an incredible, incredible
skill in sales. So whether you're then selling
real estate or cars or insurance, a lot of artists
move off to sales. And then listen, like I fell
victim a little bit to, oh, I just paid my rent.
I'm with one client for the month. Huh? What
if I did that tomorrow too? Could I pay next
month's rent ahead of time? That would be insane.
I don't want to lose this creative. And then
the power of the cell phone and the power of
YouTube and Instagram. And then obviously Million
Dollar Listing. I was able to bring it all back
together. But to go back to the original question,
I am nothing like Dr. Evan Walsh IV, the murderous
doctor. Other than he looked exactly like me
because I was him. And he was very ambitious.
He was very ambitious, very ambitious. In fact,
we're going to drop a photo of you in those days
here for the thing because we love to share stuff
like that. So look, I think that once you're
in the arts, you're always in the arts. So how
much of you is an actor first, a media mogul,
or a real estate tycoon? Which one of those is
the real passion? You know, I'm a leader first
and foremost. I really enjoy leading people and
watching them be great. going back to what we
just talked about ambition i think the people
who don't like me i think are rubbed the wrong
way because they don't like my ambition they
don't like how loud or noisy i might be but if
they truly understood how many other people underneath
me win when i win they would realize that it's
not actually ambition it is unbelievable responsibility.
Isn't real estate a loud and noisy profession,
though? Don't you have to be to break through?
Today, I think I've made that so. But when I
got into the business, no. And listen, there's
lots of off -market transactions. There's lots
of this business that goes completely under the
radar. I don't think you have to be loud to break
through. I think you have to do what works for
you. Like, if I could have at the time. been
a real estate agent with no platform, I could
totally have my private life to myself. I could
just make money and sell homes. I'd probably
choose that. There's a lot of sacrifice that
comes personally with doing it the way that I've
done it. That said, I've been able to move much,
much, much, much faster doing it my way than
doing it the other way. So if CBS calls you tomorrow
and says, hey, Ryan, we really want you to be
the new tracker. You're our guy. You look like
the tracker. Let's do it. Yes or no? One, I don't
know what that is, what tracker is. It's the
number one show in the country, but okay. Second
to owning Manhattan, of course. I did email for
the entirety of the World Cup. I just work. It
is all I do. So the answer would probably be
no, but I like experiences. I like opportunities.
Netflix reached out and said, hey, do you want
to come do our new reality show based on Squid
Game with Dylan Efron and Tristan Thompson and
Mel B from the Spice Girls? And they were like,
you'd have to come to London for a week. And
that was in February. And I looked at my calendar
and was like, I definitely cannot afford a week
to go play a reality TV game show. But also,
listen, when you die, they divide up all your
stuff. The people... who didn't really care about
you say i'm sorry to the people who did there's
a procession and then everyone gets in their
car and goes back to work and slowly but surely
whatever doesn't fit in the eulogy no longer
matters so who am i to turn down a cool opportunity
one of our agents her whole goal of coming to
work with me and doing content and etc was one
make money i want to i want to make money i want
to help people and i really love real estate
but two if i could ever get on broadway I don't
know, another place in the new world of media
where I could be a working professional, but
also create a personality, then doing it at Serhant
in a professional way. And she did that. And
she was just cast on Six on Broadway. And she
starts, I think, August, in the middle of August
or something like that. So you will see me on
Squid Game playing these ridiculous games, running
for my life, being way more stressed than any
real estate deal I've ever done, by the way.
That was emotionally traumatizing. I've got to
love a lot of your team, the Naples group in
particular. And you do recruit some wildly incredible
talent. So kudos to you. Last time you were on
an Inman stage, you made the very interesting
comment that said there's only going to be two
players left in the world. It's going to be Compass
and it's going to be Serhant. How's that going?
Great. So far. Do you stand by that still? Yep.
I think that was like six months ago. Yep. Listen,
I think you have to, as a brokerage, If you want
to be in the brokerage business, you have to
make a decision. You're either empowering the
property first, and then the person is the byproduct
to get to the property, or you're empowering
the person first, and the person is the product
to get to the property. And it might be the wrong
decision. I don't know, but I empower the person.
Like our tech empowers the people. Our brand
empowers the people. Everything we do, I do this
as a living. I sell real estate alongside our
agents. I'm about to, I get off with you and
I race to the airport and I go to Texas to open
Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas. All
with agents, by the way, who were paid so much
money to go to Compass, who come to us for free.
I buy $0 of revenue. All 2 ,044 agents who've
joined us up until last Friday, I don't know
what it's going to be today, come not for money.
Because if you come for the money, you stay for
the money. They come for the opportunity and
they stay for the results. That's why my GCI
retention is 99 .2 % amortized over those, what
has it been, five years that I've been doing
this. And so we are very, very much about the
person. I think the brokerage industry. As a
whole, though, that's why I look at these mergers
and I'm like, maybe I'm just too dumb to totally
understand. But I think the industry is massively
over -agented. I think it's radically underproductive.
I think the average agent completed 10 transactions
last year. I don't think that's primarily an
agent problem. I think it's a market problem.
I think it is a real estate industry problem
because we've created an asset class that is
not infrastructure the way we all think it is
because we all need to live in a home. But we've
turned it, we've created it as an asset. But
I think it's also a broken operating system problem.
I think the future belongs to fewer. better obviously
ai powered agents the same way when i got into
the business early on i was competing against
agents they didn't know how not to advertise
in the new york times that is where they would
get all their their traffic that's where they
would get all of their open house traffic and
i was this seems crazy because it was 2008. the
internet had been around for a long time a lot
of people had dial up 10 years prior but they
only used it for email everything else was still
in paper and i think having Hundreds of thousands
of people manually pushing paperwork through
disconnected systems is not the way the future.
Every other firm I see is a subscription based
business or it's run by a total wacko. So like
I don't know who else is who else is out there.
Also, I am very much and I've said this incredibly
publicly. I say this to all of our agents and
I'm in the make money business. I am still trying
to find a CEO of a real estate company. That
is also in that business. And which means that
they're making money somewhere. Right. And it's
on the backs of salespeople. Give me an example.
Can you be specific? Give me an example of what
that looks like. How much money does real make?
How much money does eXp make? How much money
does Fathom make? How much money does LPT make?
How much money does LMNOZ? I don't even know
what the fuck these companies are make. They
are subscription -based businesses that want
to grab market share and they either make money
on the backs of recruiting or on selling services.
I've interviewed people at like... I've interviewed
people at Real. Like right when the CEO of Real,
he got in trouble for sexual harassment or something,
or he was dating his own agents or some bullshit
psychopath stuff. Like a bunch of his people
like tried to leave. And we're always, sure,
let's take interviews. Like, so what's it like
to be at the brokerage? Oh, no, no, we're not
a real estate brokerage. We're a fintech company.
The fuck does that mean? Well, we're trying,
we're finding different ways to make money off
of our agents. We sell them different services
and different fees and different this and different
that. And then they ask me, they're like, how
do you operate? You're so expensive. Me? I don't.
I'd rather have a brutally honest agreement and
conversation with the salesperson who's willing
to work with us and not secretly nickel and dime
them forever. And maybe that's just because I
do this and I know how the business works. Yeah.
But, you know, a lot of the agents that work
for us, one, we get a lot of flack because they're
young and they are. We have agents who are older
and I love it. So I'm like, great, please, please
help train these kids who are growing up in the
industry and they've grown up with me. Yeah.
And I think there is no better brand platform
to build an incredible opportunity for yourself
and for your career. than us, which is why we're
moving so fast. Less agents, more tech, which
brings me to your simple platform, which you
call the DoorDash for work. Tell me a little
bit about that, but also tell me, is it a productivity
tool that lets agents do 3x more or is it a way
to reduce headcount or both? It's a way to reduce
headcount. I mean, my agent productivity, I think,
is already the highest. in the industry because
we don't we don't take agents who do less than
10 million dollars a year in most states and
we don't take principal agents who do less than
50 million a year and i'm not trying to build
the biggest company to then figure out what to
do with people i'm trying to build the best brand
reputation is incredibly important there was
an agent we just apparently we hired on friday
one of those 2044 so maybe we're 2043 right now
who you know i got a dm this morning at 7am from
somebody screenshotted something awful that this
person that we just hired, apparently, said to
a potential client over text. And we immediately
checked into it, immediately went through it.
He had a whole defense and he was in the moment
and he had a rough weekend, this, that, the other.
100 % fired immediately. One strike policy. I
don't care. And he does a lot of business, came
from another big firm, a lot of business. I'm
like, that's the way you are two days before
you officially start with me. Imagine the way
you've been as a human being for the last. 20
years, let alone for the next two years going
forward, absolutely not. I think the, you asked
about simple, not about behavior, but listen,
I think the last 20 years are about who could
scale agents and listings. And I think there's
a lot of firms who are still trying to do that,
scale agents and listings. I think the next 10,
at least, we'll see about 20, are about who owns
the underlying AI layer of that customer journey,
from first search to final signature. My mission,
other than just helping people move forward,
we help our buyers move forward, we help our
sellers move forward, our agents move forward
in their careers, our staff move forward, is
to create, one, the only AI -native real estate
firm in the country, which we are, but then also
a platform, which is what Simple is, that automates
operations, enhances pricing and marketing. gives
every salesperson the leverage of a full agentic
support team because technology powers the process,
but people drive the outcome. And I don't think
that changes. Do you ever see that product being
a standalone? You can sell it into other groups
or is it always the secret sauce that you build
at? We get asked all the time. Potentially, we're
releasing Simple 2 in September. It's been a
huge amount of my... my time and work, but it's
also just been fun because it's just a different
part of my brain compared to what I've done over
a long period of time here. So potentially, yeah,
I think we have to see how it goes. So you are
obviously incredibly successful, brilliant, and
you have an opportunity to advise the CEO of
Inman of what the hell he should do to make Inman
the most relevant, high -performing media network
related to residential real estate. What would
you tell him? I think you're already doing it
by doing this because now you'll have this. And
I think you're banking these episodes before
you put them out. And so you're controlling narrative,
which is really important. And you're also connecting
to the characters that you write about, right?
News is great if you connect to the characters
you write about. But if the news now doesn't
have perspective, then it's just news, you know,
and you don't need it. So I think you're doing
a great job of bringing perspective to... a very,
very respected news brand. And you're also doing
something. I think we talked about, maybe, maybe
I can't remember when we first met the first
time in building out your advisory board. Yeah.
Like around yourself, you know, it's one of the
first things I did when I first started, because
I don't know, I have no idea. Like when we started
serving at man, like I, I was like, what I had
to talking to agents in California and Atlanta.
I was like, wait, how do you do deals? You what?
Really? So we built a, you know, we built in,
we continue to update it and this, that, the
other and advisory board of just great salespeople
around the country. Now it's around the world
because of sellit .com. And I think it's really,
really important. You got to hear from your constituents,
you know, what they want to see, what they want
to hear. And I think you're doing a really, really
great, great job with that. Well, I appreciate
that. So let's talk about Sell It for a minute
because I find that really fascinating. You obviously
have a multimedia approach to everything you're
doing here. Sell It is a place where people can
get trained and credentialed. How does that sit
against the Tom Ferries of the world and some
of those other players out there? Where do I
even want to start? I think Tom Ferries is awesome.
I think he's the man I've known him for a long
time. I think anybody who devotes their life
and their career to educating others, I tip my
hat to you because you could be doing other things.
I learned a lot from Brian Buffini when I first
got into the business. I think I still have those
DVDs somewhere. Sell It, for me, initially, was
an extension of the book. I wrote Sell Like Sir
Ant. People bought that thing all over the world.
It's like, all right, so what do I do? So I did
a TV show called Sell It Like Sirhan for Bravo
that ruined my life for four months. And that
was like, that was an exercise I can't ever do
again. Like that took me out of selling and that
hurt that year for me. I'm like, well, how do
I connect to all these people? Getting hundreds
of emails a day at that time from people reading
the book and wanting to work with us. And I don't
work with these people all over the world. And
so I guess they could just follow me on social.
I can add them to my mailing list. I can try
to save everyone's contact, but how do I create
a community? And there was no Patreon back then.
There was, you know, in 2018 and 2019, you know,
none of these kinds of community apps. It's like,
okay, so you know what? I really do like encouraging
people. I do like helping people. I love, dude,
I love, like I may like get teary eyed, but like
I, one of our sell it members, Paulina Mattson.
Okay. She was one of the earliest adapters of
sell it. you know, back when it was like Serhant
before it became sellit .com and stuff, you know,
a mom in Arizona listened to everything we taught,
like took it all to heart, did the actual work,
then said, whenever Serhant's got to come to
Arizona, we were only in New York City. It's
like, Arizona? What's the temperature? Eventually
we started expanding. The temperature is hell.
That's the temperature. We tap on everyone's
shoulder. She becomes a founding member of Sirhan
Arizona, one of our founding agents. And she
just sold two weeks ago now, the single most
expensive single family home to ever sell in
the state of Arizona. And like I, that, that
is the difference between sell it and. everybody
else. One, it's led by a guy that actually does
this because when she was doing that deal and
calling me, you know, we have a broker of record.
She can call anybody and asking about how, you
know, different ways to negotiate and what's
happening in the marketplace right now, not just
from an educator, but from an operator, from
an executor. And we are incredibly helpful that
way. And two, we give people a path towards career
brilliance here at Sell It and not just scripts
and information. I think a lot of the real estate
educators, just like most digital education and
coaching right now across the board, you see
this with a lot of these companies, are having
a really, really hard time in the era of Claude
and ChatGPT. For 20 bucks a month, you could
go into an LLM and ask it to coach you. It's
not the same. It's not. It's wildly different.
Yeah. It's not. Not. not so far off sometimes,
but we have great coaches. We have an awesome
app, a huge community, and there's a ton of referral
business. And so that's really our community
angle. So for me, it's content to community,
to code, that's simple, to commerce, that's the
brokerage. That is my flywheel and I just spin
it all day long. It's studios to sell it, to
simple. to surhand the brokerage and then round,
round, round. Love the flywheel concept. Absolutely
love the flywheel concept. Use it all the time.
You know, one of the things that really fascinates
me about you, and it shouldn't because obviously
you're successful and it should be. part and
parcel to it, but you are incredibly dialed into
the day -to -day business. I used the example
of the Naples Fort Myers team and, you know,
they're talking about how we're getting, we're
getting DMs and we're getting calls from Ryan
Serhan at nine, nine 30 at night recruiting us.
You're not passing this off to your team. You
are literally hands -on. What is the discipline
underneath the speed and how do you keep that
going, you know, with, with, with you at the
head of it? I have awesome people. I just, I
surround myself with people that are so much
better at things than me so that they can make
me look good. So that, that story, like, you
know, is, is not just me waking up and saying,
let me just do all the things. No, it's Yasser,
Yasser Ponce, who runs the state of Florida.
It's Tiffany McQuaid in Naples. It's our individual
leaders and managers and just great people around
us who are helping guide me. And they coach me
as much as they coach and work with all of our
salespeople to sell more and more and more. I've
got an awesome, awesome team here from finance,
which I'm very, very close to, to our operations
team. My chief business officer, Jen Elise, has
been here. Today, actually, I don't know when
we're going to air this. Today is Jen's 11 year
anniversary with us. And that's when I had a
team. She started in 2015 and then helped us
start the business. And so I'm incredibly loyal
to my people, potentially to a fault, but I really,
really appreciate it because you can work anywhere
and they just make me better. You know, owning
Manhattan is without a doubt a recruiting and
lead gen engine, right? And what happens when
that gets the call that, hey, sorry, Ryan, we're
good. We're moving on to something else. Does
that slow you guys down or can you keep the juggernaut
moving? Owning Manhattan is like a magazine for
me. Like it is a ton of work. It's a ton of production.
And you do this annual magazine and you put it
out there. And it's there and people are either
going to read it or not read it. And so it's
definitely, definitely helpful. But in terms
of our operations, I think if Instagram shut
down or TikTok shut down or LinkedIn shut down
or YouTube shut down, we'd have like a problem
and we'd have to pivot to whatever the new platform
would be. Our ability to drive share of voice
across agent and consumer mindshare 24 -7 across
social platforms. from Tokyo to Toledo is unlike
anything that exists in this business. And it
drives not just lead flow for salespeople, but
also like real deal flow. You know, I like, you
know, there's a reason. I mean, I do green screen
sessions three days a week. I've yet to figure
out how AI can fix that. I've tried. I've tried.
It's like robot Ryan. Like, welcome to 123 Main
Street. And it just is. I'm like, man, I got
to do this by myself. I have an idea. OK, this
is going to be the probably the biggest fundraiser
in the history of residential real estate. OK,
very media savvy. This is this decision here.
But you got to tell me two things. Whether you're
in and who walks away the winner. OK, we go WWE
style. We do a steel cage match in Madison Square
Garden with you and Robert Reffkin. Who walks
out the winner? That shouldn't take that. I like
Robert too much. I have a good relationship with
Robert. Unfortunately, I think we'd probably
just hug it out and then split the proceeds.
That's probably... That's probably what would
happen, you know, or we would set up, you know,
if it's WWE or F, like we'd set up a thing. I'm
like, all right, so just like kick me in my right
knee because it kind of hurts. I'll go down hard
and then we can. You'd script it all out ahead
of time and walk away with the proceeds. I love
it. No physical violence for me, unless you come
at my people and then I will. And then I will
fight back. I agree. He's a great dude, but that
would be a fun scenario. So when are we going
to do owning Fort Myers? Because last time you
made the comment about Fort Myers being where
Brooklyn was 20 years ago, my house values went
up about 5%. So let's do more of that. My God,
I said something the other day. When was it?
Or the other month. Bluffton, South Carolina.
I saw that. And I get equal parts. Thank you
so much for putting Bluffton on the map and equal
parts. dare you. I can no longer get a table
at my favorite restaurant now. I have no pick
in this battle. I just really appreciate the
drop growth in Bluffton. I think there's easy
access to the Savannah airport. And so it's just,
I think it's, you know, it's a great, and I get
very excited about Waymo. You know, when we opened
in San Francisco, one of our meetings was sitting
there and it's like looking around and all these
development sites and spots are no longer going
to be buildings. They've all been bought by Google.
And they are Waymo parking lots. If Google's
not buying land for data centers, they're buying
land for Waymo parking lots. Just like Amazon
buying land for logistics centers so they could
get prime and put a toothbrush in your hand in
two hours. You want to be able to have a Waymo
outside. You need to have the actual car there.
And I think the real estate values on the fringe
become incredibly valuable. So my eye on once
that comes into your standard car. That is a
major, major, major game changer. I don't think
it's too far away. And I actually was in Phoenix
and did Waymo. And it was it definitely tightens
you up a little bit, you know, worried about
it. OK, what's something almost everyone in real
estate believes today that we're going to be
laughing about in 10 years and go, wow, we were
wrong? I could be totally wrong, but I think
everyone believes that real estate starts with
search. And. This battle over Zillow and the
battle over the consumer and the battle over
search. I think search was solved. I think the
transaction was not. And I think everyone fighting
for search is not the battle that I would be
in. I think consumers can find almost every poem
from their couch on any platform and they're
not going to go to one specific place. not just
going to go to Surhant or Compass or Zillow or
whatever the heck the next thing is going to
be, right? They're going to be told where to
go. Does Google change that? Google's leaning
in heavily now. Do they change that? Because
they went on Google. Google was in it before.
They had their listings there before. What made
Zillow so powerful wasn't just the data. It was
the quality and the policing of the data. Like
you can have all the listings you want. Sure.
Set up a API like everyone set it up like you
can do it. You can search anywhere you want.
But if they're not real or if they're fake or
if they're messy or if that actually sold already
or if there's no one on the other side of that
phone call, like you have one shot with the consumer.
They're going to try your thing once. Nah, it
didn't really work. And then they're going to
go back to what they knew best. That's why it
was the first time you took your iPhone out of
that magnetically sealed box and you turned it
on. You saw the little apple and everything just
turned on in 30 seconds. You're like, whoa. You
weren't used to that. So I think the next great
real estate company, and maybe people just aren't
focused on this right now, well, it's not going
to win by showing consumers more listings. It'll
win. It'll win by actually removing steps. You
know, I think that listing portal was the defining
product of brokerage 2 .0. I think that transaction
layer will be the defining product of 3 .0. OK,
this is our rapid fire segment of this. I'm going
to throw out some topics and you're going to
say whether there's signal or noise, signal or
noise, one word answer. And then if you want
to elaborate on why, well, we can talk about
that. OK, you ready for this? Billionaire bunkers,
signal. or noise signal signal why is what do
they what do they know ryan can you hang out
with these types of people now do i need to tell
them yeah no it's land maxing no of course you
know what else are you going to do with your
money like as a hedge in 2022 we did significant
land max billionaire transactions everywhere
around the country and it was it was more of
a hedge against inflation which is what happened.
And they were smart, those property values. I
sold a house in 2021 in Palm Beach for $133 million.
I think today, maybe it's worth $300 million.
That was a hedge against inflation. That was
also land -maxing oceanfront in what is the only
oceanfront state with the best tax policy. It's
just that one state. That's it. Texas is good,
but like... There's not a whole lot of people
getting excited about the Gulf, you know? Yeah.
You know, it's... Except for Fort Myers, Ryan,
right? Fort Myers is great. We were 50 % sold
to one Fort Myers, by the way. Yes, you are.
I love it there. I love that. And the Chionis
is sold to Penthouse. I mean, they crush it.
They're the best. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay,
costarhomes .com, mega merger with Zillow. If
it ever happens, is that signal or is it noise?
Noise. Absolute noise. Could it happen? Sure.
I don't think the board of CoStar will let them
get into the residential space ever, ever, ever
again. But again, that is a fight for search.
It's going back to what we just talked about.
Like, instead of spending all of this money,
time, and effort on protecting where we've been,
why not invent something new? Why not build for
where we're going? Like, why? I just don't get
it. I don't. I just don't get it. AI will replace
the agent. Signal or noise? Noise. Noise. Oh,
it sounds so stupid because it's so obvious.
But AI doesn't replace the real estate agent.
It replaces the real estate agent that doesn't
use AI. That's it. Yeah. The internet didn't
replace fidelity. It didn't put investment bankers
out because you could go and invest. What it
does is it creates more investors. AI, what I'm
seeing, I'm not seeing a slowdown in the growth
of agents or opportunity for us. That's why we're
opening in so many markets. You know, one reason
why you're seeing the opportunity for more, like
the barrier of entry was a little bit higher
prior to. It's a lot of work. Even before social,
you know, to get into real estate, like you had
to know people. You had to create relationships.
And you still have to do that. But now, like
what we do, I have agents, their entire lead
flow is through DM. We have agents here who are
here, but they are based a significant amount
of their business, I would say like north of
80 % is all in Asia. They repurpose Serhant branded
content, put themselves in it. and push organic
storytelling on Redbook, I think it's called.
We're the most followed real estate brand in
Asia and it drives all their leaflet. I mean,
they make millions and millions of dollars that
way. So I think it's the agent who uses the current
technology and they innovate wins over everybody
else. Okay, last question. We're gonna get you
to your next meeting. Simple becomes sentient,
okay? Oh, I hope so. and starts closing deals
better than you, do you fire it or name it as
a partner and put its name on the door? It will
close deals. It will. Oh, 100%. It will. Like
what I have seen from our engineering team and
what they've been able to build. And we have
some of the best minds in the industry that I've
pulled in part huge credit to our CTO, Greg Chan,
who spent the first 20 years of his career. Microsoft
and Amazon. And he is assembled like the Avengers.
Simple, we'll be able to go from discovery, it's
not search, discovery to close. And you just
were never able to do it before because you didn't
have agentic AI to lead the way. Everything was
push and start, push and start, push and start
previously. But yeah, I think so. And I think
that in 10 years, um five years actually i think
that'll feel incredibly normal and we will laugh
at the time when agents do contracts we will
laugh at the time when you'd have to follow up
by email with inspectors or with lenders or with
attorneys and you're coordinating everything
if you buy a house right now how do you know
where you are in the point of your transaction
yeah yeah and then and it's 2026 It's crazy.
I don't know. Ryan Serhant, a rock star in the
industry. You still have the best hair in the
industry and I still hate you for it. So we're
going to end on that. But we love having you
and love your involvement and appreciate everything
you're doing, man. You're the man. Thank you.
thank you thanks for listening to signal
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