Trading Secrets - 19: BUY OR SELL?! Ryan Serhant from Million Dollar Listing Talks All Things Real Estate

Episode Date: September 20, 2021

Thinking of buying a new home or selling yours at all time market highs?  If so, then you’ll want to listen to Ryan Serhant’s Take.  Not only does he give you advice, but he gives us his full financial story,  From a broke actor to executing a $133 Million Dollar Mansion deal! Ryan Serhant is a real estate broker, CEO, and founder of SERHANT., a vertically-integrated mega brokerage comprising an in-house film studio, education arm, marketing division, and technology platform. He's also a bestselling author, producer, and star of Bravo's Million Dollar Listing New York and Sell It Like Serhant.  Ryan, his advice and story are full of trading secrets you can’t afford to miss!  For All Access Content - join our networking group for less than 30 cents a day! Host: Jason Tartick Voice of Viewer: David Arduin Executive Producer: Evan Sahr Produced by Dear Media.

The following podcast is a dear media production. Welcome back to another episode of Trading Secrets. Today we are talking with the king of New York City luxury real estate brokerage, the social media guru, podcaster, author, and million-dollar listing shark. from a broke actor to a real estate selling empire. We have Ryan Serhent on the show. Ryan, thank you so much for joining me on another episode of Trading Secrets.

Thanks, man. Thanks for having me back. This is awesome. Yeah, so we had you on restart about a year ago, and here we are. A lot has changed in the last year, but I kind of want to just get right into it. And so last year, when I talked to you,

you talked a little bit about the fact that you had kind of like a regular upbringing when I had a great college education. The world surrounding you, of friends and family and colleagues went to go pursue higher education and, you know, maybe they landed their jobs as attorneys or your typical blueprint, but you said that you saved all your summer money up and you moved to the most expensive city in the United States, New York City, to pursue this goal and passion of modeling and acting. So I'm just curious for

someone out there that's looking to, you know, potentially pursue their passion, from your standpoint, at least, how much did you actually save before making this decision to feel good about taking this leap of faith? I think I had just over $20,000 because I'd put, yeah, I was just over, maybe it was like 25 because I had a, you know, back in the day, you'd do CDs, right? So I would put, I put $10,000 into a CD once I had $10,000, which is basically you lock it up, you can't take it out without severe penalty, but you get a much higher interest rate. So like when you're younger, my parents told me like this, just put it into a CD because you have no need for the money. So I put $10,000 there.

I put another $10,000 once I had it into another CD, which didn't become available to me until after my first year in New York. And then I had, I want to say, like $5,000 in change and kind of like spending cash here and there for initial rent and food and stuff. So that first $10,000 got me through the first year. Second $10,000 got me through the second year. But that was right around when I decided, you know, I don't know how to make any more money as an actor who works for free.

So I need to get some sort of job. So I don't have to think about money all the time. Like the one thing I wanted to make sure of was that all day I would focus on either the craft or the work or what I had to do because I had a lot of friends. And I saw a lot of people who are so focused on money that they let money, the fear of money, the fear of losing money, like control their lives. And I didn't want to make decisions based on money. I wanted to make decisions based on what I thought I could be great at, what I thought I could do well, and then the money would follow.

Yeah. What's interesting is to go back a couple steps in that dialogue, as you said that your parent suggested, you'd be in something safe like a CD, right? How different times are? You've got 17 and 60-year-olds, finding money from all kind of side hustle, putting it in shit like GameStop and actually have an impact on the market. It's wild. But one thing about the industry, I'm curious in the acting world and the modeling gig. I mean, we hear all the successful stories of some of the people that absolutely crushed it. and it just made an unbelievable career out of it. When you're getting going in that world, is that what it is? You're doing a lot of free work just to build your resume to try and land a gig. And when you do land a gig early on,

like is there any money? Is it like 200 bucks to shoot? Like, what was that like just trying to grind and something like that? Yeah, that's a good question. I think everyone needs to be prepared to work for free. Like even, and I think that was a huge benefit to me, even when I got into real estate,

because a lot of people get into real estate, they don't make money and then they quit because they don't get paid for their time. This sucks. In a regular job, I'd be paid by hour. That client just lied to me. I don't make any money. But, you know, I went to school. I went to high school.

I went to college. No one paid me. I went to learn. And I'm the one who spent money. And when you graduate, whether you're graduating college and going to work or graduating high school, you have to not let go of that same mentality. You are young. You are learning.

And you're on the job to learn. If anyone pays you money, you are one of the lucky few. Otherwise, you should be just learning, and that is your pay, right? Soke it up. And so for my first couple years in the city, I'm trying to be an actor, it was, yeah, I mean, listen, if I could find a job that paid money, absolutely, let's go. But I was more looking for things that could help me build up my resume, build up my network, kind of take any kind of jobs and things that I could, right?

Like I wanted to build up a reel, so I'd have something to show. So I'll do student films for free, you know, little little, side gigs, things like that for free, just so that I could have the content. And that's what I'd get paid for. Say, can you email me or send me the CD or DVD, the clip, right? And then that way I could use that as part of the real. Yeah. I mean, it makes a lot of sense. And some of the things you just said, I think are so important today because some of those transferable skill sets of doing something for free, whether it's acting or being in real estate, stick with you forever. It's a brand that you can take anywhere. You go. And if you're W2 or 1099, you're, you know, you don't have

contracts like NFL and NBA players, right? You're a free. your freelance, your free agent, you can be fired tomorrow. It's a good perspective. One thing, Ryan, last time I talked to you, you said the quote, I rather regret the things I did than the things I never tried. And I'm curious for you at what point did you realize when pursuing acting that this was quickly going to be something that you tried and in this stage, at least failed and had to move on.

When I ran out of money. That's a good answer. When I ran out, I mean, literally it was like, I ran out of money. I didn't want to, what was it going to do? go to Chase Bank and ask for a loan so I could stay here and do monologues in the park for free. Like I didn't want to ask for help. Like I needed a job. And so I just wanted to make sure that I had a job that allowed me to do what I actually wanted to do. So I had so many friends and people who, you know, got bartending jobs, waiter jobs. But then you were locked into those

hours. And then it's really hard to get out of them or have people cover your shifts because you start to feel guilty. And then if you do it too much because of, you know, what you really want to do, which is go on auditions or do a show or, you know, if you're a musician, go play a concert. Then you get fired, right, if you skip too many of them. And then what happens is, you know, you see that, hey, the more, you know, nights you take on or you start covering other people's shifts, you make a little bit more money. And you know what? I don't like roaches in my apartment. Let me go find an apartment that doesn't have roaches and the smell of death. And so now all of a sudden you're paying more money and your lifestyle increases, your monthly budget increases. And so now

you're locked into your bills. So you don't work for your passion. You don't work for your job. Now you work for your monthly expenses. And then it's tougher and tougher. And, you know, that job ends up becoming what you do. And then what you actually wanted to do ends up becoming your hobby or your side gig. And so it really was money. And so real estate for me was the last thing in the world I ever wanted to do. A friend told me to do it and told me to get my life. license and say, listen, what are your monthly bills? What's your rent? What did that? You can rent an apartment or two a month, and then you can do whatever you want the rest of the month. Like, if you put an ad on Craigslist on Monday, you meet a client, you rent in an apartment that week,

then, and they are renting an apartment, let's say, for $5,000, you make $2,500 because your commission is one month's rent. You split it with the house because you're brand new. That's $50, $2,500. You're good to go. You got three weeks then to do whatever. you want. It's like, oh, okay, but no one pays you per hour or anything like that, right? Nope, nope. So you can get a deal done in an hour and you make $2,500 an hour or that deal could take you a month and you make like $4 an hour. So it just, it just completely depends. And I just became addicted to it, you know, but I was so used to working for free. I wasn't like a lot of other people who had a hard time with the rejection, had a hard time with the learning. Like, I was used to, I mean,

I spent months and months and months just spending money. No one paid me to do anything when I was trying to be an actor. So for real estate, it wasn't a huge shift. It would have actually been stranger for me if I got a check every week or biweekly. It would have been like weirder than like, well, I don't understand. I'm only used to being paid for something when I do something well, which is I get cast in a role that I was right for and do a good job. Then I get a check for it, right?

And in real estate, it's the same thing. you get paid when your clients declare success. So I tell everybody who gets into real estate and people who are new to any industry, think about your first three years like grad school. Your first three years, right? Think about anyone else who gets to go to grad school. Your law school is two years. Business school can be three, like depending on the program.

Med school is seven. Think about those first three years as if you were going to grad school. And all you'd be doing is spending money, but you'd be learning. And you'd be coming out of that with a degree that would set you up, for the rest of your life, right? That's the goal. That's why people go to graduate school. Do you have to go to graduate school? No. Do most people, no. Is it incredibly expensive? Yes. But the idea is that you get out with an even higher learning than your competition, you get a better job, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So if you can treat your first couple years

in the workforce, whether it's real estate, whether it's cars, insurance, finance, whatever you want to do, or you're just an entrepreneur. Those first three years of grad school, if you make money, that is a bonus. Everything else, you are paying for knowledge. You are paying for information. You're paying for the benefit of having that time on your resume. So it can be part of your story when you go to meet that person who is going to pay you 18 months from now. One of the things that you wrote, you've written about and you talk about is this finder, keeper, doer organizational structure you have. And the idea for anyone listening is the finder hours of Ryan's day.

He's a CEO. He's a leader. His keeper hours, he thinks more money. So some of these things we're referring to do, right, the analytics, the dollars, the sense, the addresses, and then the doer is more of the chief organizational operation part of your day. I want to talk about the keeper part of that. So that's some of the stuff that you just alluded to, the dollars, the cents, knowing these addresses back from 2009 and 2010 of some of your first deals.

When you look at kind of this keeper section, Ryan Serhan is a CFO in 2009 to even 2021 when it comes to spend, what are some of your expenditure line items that have always been a focus? have been just super successful in that you're analyzing where that money's going, knowing that there's going to be some type of return out of it. So house, food, experience, health, advertising, marketing, and then investment. Those are the major line items, really. You know, experience is going out to dinner, movies, sports games, traveling vacations. Health is the gym is, you know, a serious health issues, health insurance, stuff like that. Advertising marketing when I was in 2009 was, you know, I have a listing. I got to take out an ad in the New York Times, right? I think it was like

50 bucks. I can't remember. So I would take out that ad and that was a dollar item or I wanted to do a postcard, you know, to a neighborhood. I just sold this apartment or just rented this. You should use me. Here's a market report. That postcard, you know, you're buying it in bulk and stock, buying the addresses. You're buying the postage and then you're shipping it all out. So that's a cost. And then investment is investing, you know, now for me, it's investing into my company that I have now. So investing into the company, into new employees, into our new office, into new marketing, advertising and all that. And also into new other businesses, ancillary businesses that are part of our same ecosystem that makes sense. And in 2009, I wasn't doing a whole lot of the best thing other than into myself, like different trainings or, you know, taking big brokers out for lunch.

that was an advertising marketing. That was really like an investing cost in my head because I'm going to ask them 100 questions and see if they answer them all. And I'm going to try to memorize them all so I can fast forward my career without having to learn all of their mistakes through trial by fire.

I can just learn from them and skip over those mistakes. But those are the main line items. And so I think a lot of businesses right now are looking at all forms of advertising and marketing spend, whether it's Facebook sponsored ads or they're looking at TikTok or they're doing the swipe up.

with influencers. Either a success or failure, can you think of in the last several years where you have really spent some serious bucks behind? Maybe it's even the podcast you just released or the book. Some serious ideas or strategies that you have launched or put some big money into and it's been a huge success or a huge failure that he won't do it again. So my first book, right? So it is just what comes to mind anyway. It was my first book. I didn't like hire a whole team or anything. I just sort of, you know, posted about it. I talked about it. I did a book tour. And it crushed it. Like hit every bestseller list was huge.

And I didn't, like, just did it organically. I think because it was about real estate, but it was about sales. And it really spoke to my audience. Second book, I launched during COVID. And, you know, it's two years later. I have more resources now. So I hired like a totally separate PR team. I had another publicist on top of it.

I had my whole ventures crew who now is a whole separate division of our business on top of it. So I went from like selling sell like Sirhant, my first book, by my self. with like one guy who was in my office helping me. Now I got a team of like 15. And the book comes out and it does okay. It's doing fine now. Like people are buying it. Like don't get me wrong.

People are buying it. It's great. It's doing well. I actually think big money energy is a better book and is more applicable to more people's lives than sell like Sirhan. Sell like Sirhan is super niche to sales. Sure. And it's definitely not a failure.

If it were my first book and we looked at like the sales numbers, say, holy shit, you crushed it. It's fine. It made the list. It's great. but it didn't hit the benchmarks that I set forth to hit based on what I was spending to promote it. Like we were running social ads, this, that, the other.

And I don't know if it's because people just look at me and think, okay, that guy is real estate, that guy is sales, and he wrote a book about energy and how changing your energy your life. All right, I'll get to that eventually. Or if just honestly, you know, bookstores are a big part of how people, people still buy and read actual books these days.

It's not just all audibles and e-books and, you know, COVID had everything shut down. I don't know. I mean, on the wind side, for sure, and again, these are not real estate scenarios, but Sell Like Surhant did so well. It became a show on Bravo called Sell It Like Surhant, where I go and run around and help crazy sales people who suck at selling

learn how to sell better so they don't lose their job. And then I was approached by a guy at NBC Universal. who's super smart. His name is Kyle Scott. I'd met him before because we had done a lot of press with him at NBC Digital. And he's like, listen,

you know, have you thought about online education? It's like, eh, yeah, really. I mean, sort of, I guess. But like, I've seen a lot of online education before. And again, this is way pre-COVID.

So this was 2017, 2018. And he's like, no, no, no, it's a real, you know, it's a huge market. You should make a course from South, like Sirhan, all around the world, like what you know, and it could be a great business. And I really fought it. And it's like, I don't know. So, and he wrote me, he ran me through like the whole cost and the scenarios. And I was like, do I really need another thing? Dude, I lead a 65 person sales team. I'm from

coast to coast. I've got a book. I got two TV shows. I got to like focus on my wife at some point. But I invested in it. And it was like, all right, fine. How much thing it costs? I think it cost, I want to say, like, $50,000 or $60,000 to produce. between the people, the labor, the editing costs, the writing, the website, you know, making it all super professional because what I told him was like, listen, fine, I'll do it. But it's got to be the greatest fucking course in the history of online courses. Like, I'm not making a reality TV show course here. This isn't going to be bullshit. If we're going to do this, we're going balls to the wall and we're going to make it awesome. And I want people to really learn something.

And I want it to be amazing. And I want to build a community. And like, let's just go hard. Oh, yeah. Like, I never want to do anything and just do it just to do it. And so we did that. And I think we made that back in the first, like, hour when we launched the course. Yeah. And that business has now turned into, like, a massive part of our company. We now have 7,000 agents in 109 countries. I've got that ventures team went from Kyle to now 10 people full time between customer service, sales, digital ads, digital marketing, PR, like the whole nine yards, totally crazy. And so the idea of that training is you can actually get your license and then become a broker

for your agency? Well, it's both. I mean, you can just take the course and learn how to sell better and actually train and invest in your own career anywhere in the world. You don't have to become an agent with us. You learn how to sell better. And we have agents take it, but sort of like doctors, dentists, authors. Like, there's like, there's a, like a NASCAR driver who took the course and it changed,

the way that he pitches himself to raise money for sponsorships for his car, like, craziest things. But yes, if you were a member of our brokerage in New York, you have to take the course. Very important. Knowing what you know as an agent, forget about real estate. You obviously have to hire people. You've already talked about it with your book. You hired the team. You hired these PR people. And you're on. I mean, your resume of the media stuff that you're on and the people you've done work with is insane. It's like that's what people do just for their career, the experience that you have. So when you're hiring these agents, what are you looking for in like your publicist or your TV agent or your social media agent or the whole agency side

being one of the best, while different industry real estate agents out there? Honestly, like I am attracted to energy. If you have good energy and you can keep it up, right? So you have endurance. anything is possible. Like you can learn anything, you can be taught anything, you can do anything. If you have high energy, it doesn't mean like smoke crack, right?

Like when I say that, I get nervous that people are like, oh, when I drink positive, no, it means that you bring a zest to the words that you speak. Like you're excited about life. So like it's energy, it's enthusiasm.

And it's the ability to empathize. Like those are my three E. You know, the fourth E is education, but, like, you can learn that. And if you have the energy and you have the enthusiasm to learn, then you can learn anything, right? You're just going to be smart. Like, just don't, don't, like, don't have people repeat themselves. Don't, you know, don't be lazy. Like, it's, like, there's so many easy things that people can do to get ahead that they just

don't do. And I just don't get it. So is that fair to say that when you're higher? If energy is such a big part of it. Is it fair to say, you'll always be meeting with someone either face to face or have that interaction with them so you can read that energy before you make those decisions? I mean, I mean, I'm not going to meet with everybody. You're going to hire people to help, yeah?

Yeah, you know, a team that helps me with that now, but it is what I look for. And listen, I'm in a fight right now with my executive team who we found somebody to kind of work on our operation side, right? Or at least they think we found somebody. And they're like, this is the person to go with. And I'm like, no. Like, what's the problem? Like, she had incredibly low energy.

It makes me very, very nervous. Because that means that on Monday, she might be great. But I don't know what she's going to bring to the table on Tuesday. I need someone who brings it all to the table on Friday. Like, you know, everyone else is camping out. I want that person to come in and be like, all right, let's close this week out. The best fucking week ever. Let's do it.

Right. Like that, that and the person that, you know, they really want. Yes, they're smart. Yes, they're overqualified. Yes, they're willing to do it for, you know, a lot of great reasons. But I just, I don't need a smart Monday worker. I need a Monday through a Friday really wish weeks could be longer worker. And they're hard to find. Or maybe even a Monday through Sunday worker. I mean, there's so many takeaways, guys. If you're listening out there, you're lost in your career, what you're looking for. Ryan's hiring people, you know, hundreds and hundreds of people. And if you're not walking into the meeting, bringing that energy, that Monday to

Friday grind and even weekend grind, you're going to be looked over. You're going to be passed over. Ryan, we have about 15 minutes with you. So I want to make sure that we ask us something that every single listener has asked me to ask you. So I cannot end the interview. Oh, it should be. I would assume it's a layup for a guy like you. But people want to know, right? COVID rebound, relocations, new administration in place, change is here to stay. So I'm just curious, like your whole take on, let's start with this, the real estate in New York City, the market. We've seen people come, people go, now people coming again. What's your outlook for New York City real estate? It is about time that the market here starts to go up. New York City,

if people don't know, has been down for five years. The average days on market for a luxury listing here was around 400 days. Wow. You know, and people don't know that. because they don't focus on it, but it's true. And I am finally ready for the market to recover and have people actually want real estate again. You know, the market never really recovered. And this is a global comment, especially a national one. The real estate market didn't really recover from 2008.

Because prior to 2008, okay, so from 9-11 to 2008, kind of the two big world events, right, bad events, you had people coming out of 9-11, patriotic, excited, ready to go back and say, fuck the world, let's go make money, let's buy homes, let's do this, do that. And that's what happens, right? Right. So people came back. If they needed to move, they bought. If they wanted to move, they buy, right? People were excited. Then 2008 happens. And the only deals that I've done between 2008 and COVID were deals where people needed to move. They're moving because of work, because of a baby, because they need more room, you know. It was just always need, need, need, need, need.

Yes, there were some want deals, but they were fueled by need. Like, no one needs a $30 million apartment, but that person needed to get a place and you can afford something that's 30, so screw it. Let's go get the nice one. Now, COVID happens. Everyone's like, wait a minute, we have cash. So the banks are still there. They're actually way more liquid than ever before.

They're harassing me. Interest rates are even lower than before. I just got all this free money from the government. Good thing I bought that Bitcoin in 2010. So I don't really need to move, but I kind of want to. And that fuels this market. That's why the majority of the real estate market around the United States right now is intraday. If it hits the market in the morning, it is sold by the afternoon.

And I've never experienced that. Like, for example, we have a five-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side, a 91st Street, so up there. It's nice, beautiful, staged a year ago, well, a year ago, we were screwed. I'd say two years ago, the seller said, would have asked me, how long do you think it would sell? I'd say, okay, we got to have at least six months and be prepared to negotiate, right? We now put that apartment on the market, $6 million.

Within four days, we had four offers, and one offer went $200,000. over the asking price. Wow. And we are not used to this. Like, we're... This reminds me very much of like 2014. In 2014, we had an apartment on the market for $9 million, and we went to a bidding war and sold it for 10.2.

What the shit? And that, that to me was like, okay, that's crazy. And then that all went away. The real estate market in New York is going up, up, up, up, up, up, up. But eventually, if we look at history, history always repeats itself. The Spanish flu. of 1918 led way to the roaring 20s, which led way to the stock market crash of 1929, and that was really bad for everybody.

You're going to have overspending. You're going to have a significant amount of debt. You're going to have overvaluations of a significant amount of assets, and we're already seeing that happening. But it's fine. Like we're all in the eye of the storm right now, baby. It's like, it's all good. It's all great.

Just be careful. Just be safe. Just be smart. Well, I mean, one of those things about being careful. and you see it every day, I'm sure, is that with interest rates so low, you're increasing the buying power of every consumer and liquidity. And so I have to assume that obviously there's just more supply of cash

at a lower rate, therefore higher demand and prices are going over asking. So your general advice to a consumer that is on both sides of the coin looking to sell or buy, what would you advise someone looking to sell? What would you advise someone looking to buy? So listen, if you're looking to sell, I would say you know where the market is right now and the market is the hottest it has ever been. Get that shit on the market. Sell now.

Listen, markets change real fast. All you need is new federal taxes tomorrow. All you need is something bad to happen in your area. You know what? We deal with a lot of agents in small towns all over the country, right? And what they get the most worried about and this totally blew my mind. You would never guess this. They're the most worried about it for their markets because they're like,

oh, I'm the number one agent in Springville, Iowa. Like, okay, great. And it's an amazing market until one of the teachers has a sexual relationship with one of the students, then no one is ever going to buy here ever again because they'll associate the school with the houses and it'll plummet real estate values. Blown away by that. And I was like, holy shit. Is that a real, is that a real?

thing? I didn't, I guess so. I didn't even think about that. Because like, if something happens in a public school in New York City, I'm not going to be like, oh, damn, Upper West Side, it's going down. Sure. There's just too much. In other towns, they, yeah, other towns, you know, they think that way. But so if you're a seller, sell now. The market's hot. Prices are hot. And there's demand. There's buyers. Like, sell into a hot market. My parents asked me the same thing. They had a vacation house in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, that's been trying to sell for five years. And they had a house in Arizona that had been trying to sell. off and on for a couple years.

They want to be back on the East Coast closer to the kids. And they put their house on the market in steamboat, sold it in five days, and they told an agent about their house in Arizona, and they sold it

before ever putting it on the market. Wow. Okay, how about buyers? Listen, opting to not buy now because you think prices are too high is like trying to price the stock market, right? Like, you're waiting to buy the dip, but who knows when the dip is going to be?

It might not come for a long time. Sure. Like, look at, I don't know, what's, what's something the people, so look at cryptocurrency. Sure. It's all people talk about right now. It's a, it's a frenzy. You want to wait to buy the dip. You can, but what if it doesn't come? I remember very, what was it? Like a couple months ago, you know, Bitcoin was in like, it was like 25, $28,000. Everyone was like, this is the stupid. No way, no way, no way. I'm waiting for the dip. And it's like 60. And you're like, shit. Now it's the same thing. Like, dude, I'm not, I'm not buying now. It's too high. It's too high. And you're like, okay, you're going to say the same thing when it's 100. And you're going to miss it. So I would say buy now, and don't think about it as paying high, you're buying it a discount to the future. That's what you're buying.

So if you're looking at a purchase price of $500,000 and you've got to go to $550,000, you're not paying $50,000 over. You're paying $50,000 under the $600,000 it's going to appraise for in six months. So did you get a good deal or did you overpay? because I can't go back in time. I don't know if you can. Maybe you can. You have a special time machine

that can take you back in time and make you feel like you overpaid. But for me, it'll be six months from now before you know it. By then, you probably won't have painted that fucking front porch.

You told yourself you were going to paint, you lazy guy, and you're still in the money. But like, that's what I would say. And there's a lot of, I mean,

there's a look at, the Fed is trying to keep inflation down. Interest rates can only stay artificially low for so long. Inevitably, inflation's going to happen. Prices look like they're going to continue

to go up unless there is a crash. So I think that makes perfect sense. We are already experiencing inflation. Go try to buy a stove. You can't. Go online right now. Go to Mila.

Go to Sub-Zero. Go to Thermidor. The wait time is like quadruple what it was pre-COVID. Go try to buy a car. Go try to buy a watch. Right? Go try to buy a house.

Tangible assets are finally now more in demand than ever before. because what is cash actually worth anymore? Like, what is it? No one knows. Like, all of it, I didn't know. I don't think people in our generation and in our current lifetime really understood the value of the dollar until they watched a guy, get on TV, and say, uh, here's six

trillion. And you're like, wait a minute. Excuse me. Where's it, where's that coming from? And they're like, don't worry about it. We got that. That's going to be weird for us. We got to figure that out.

Yeah, so people are just moving towards hard assets. Like, I sold a house at the beginning of this year for $133 million, right? It was the second most expensive home ever sold in the United States. And a big portion of that was, if you have that kind of money, what do you do with it right now? Where do you put it in? You put it in art. You put it in houses. you put it in, you put it in cars, you put it in gold, right?

You put it in cryptocurrency, like you put it in things that you feel are tangible that you can actually hold on to that will actually gain in value. Oh, you're not putting it in a CD. Right. No, that's not happening. Wow. But Ryan, we really appreciate your time. Before we let you go, we're going to crack into the vault.

I got five rapid fire questions here. Just want your instantaneous response. Hopefully something is good enough that we can get more exposure. And then we'll wrap up with it. trading secrets. So first one is a simple one. It's a layup. I think you already mentioned it. Most expensive house you've ever sold. 132,880,000, Palm Beach. Oh, wow. Look at that. And so that is, that's amazing, by the way. And so the second question is, and I'm curious of this, what's the highest commission you ever made on a sale? And I'm wondering for a house like that,

do they then negotiate a reduced commission because they know the big volume of the sale or no? you'd think so but uh i try not to let that happen they didn't i don't know you know we it's it's hard for me to answer that question just because we we do such amazing volume you know i'd say our biggest year we did in 2019 so pre-covid that year we did just under 20 million in gross commission income in total good stuff all right if you had to start a real estate venture a real estate brokerage company cannot be New York City. Where would you start the firm? South Florida. Yeah, it's just booming right now, right? Miami. Dude, you know who the best salesperson in the world is? It's not me. Who is? It is the governor of the state of Florida. They bring in, every other state

is raising taxes. He's bringing in a thousand permanent residents a day. That guy gets it. He has turned Florida into from a second home market into the first home market. You have people willing to leave New York City, California, amazing places, and move to Florida, which used to be God's waiting room, and they get their first home residence. They're declaring residency. They're going to school there. They're going to work there. Go to West Palm Beach.

They're more cranes in West Palm Beach than there are in New York City, building office. God's waiting. That's an exaggeration. And West Palm is not that big. But it feels like it when you're there. And so I don't understand politicians in California and New York just they feel so greatly that their states and their cities are so valuable that they can do whatever they want to the people.

And that reminds me kind of of a monarchy, right? Yeah. And I don't think those end too well most times. Whereas a state like Florida really looks at it like a democracy and says, hey, guess what? Maybe I should incentivize the residents to, want to be here and stay here and spend money here. Like, I don't have to take all their money. They're going to spend it here anyway if they're here.

And guess what? If you have a bunch of billionaires moving to your state, those guys spend money. We'd be remiss if we didn't wrap up and ask you what your trading secret is. Something someone just couldn't find in a textbook or be taught in a classroom as it relates to life, career, and financial navigation. What do you got for us? You can convince anyone to do anything if you make them feel. like it was their idea. And what I mean by that is what I've learned from having a baby to

having a wife, to selling real estate, being on the buy side, sell side, to having employees, other agents, et cetera. Anything that I want someone to do, if I tell them to do it, it's going to feel like I've given them a task or I'm barking orders. But if I reword it and I reframe it and I make them think it's their idea, then they're the ones coming to me to say, listen, I think we want to make an offer on that one. And in my head, I say, oh, wow, no way. Wow, crazy. How did we get to that decision? But vocally, I'm like, okay, all right, let's talk about it. There's a lot of other options, but let's talk about this one. But I knew that's the one they were going to buy the whole time because I planted the seed to make it their idea. And that's how you sell. That's not in a

book. And that will never be in a book. That is such good advice. And it's, again, so many thoughts of the tactics just go watch honestly the greatest sales movie you want to learn how to sell right inception inception inception i did not expect that yeah and it's not about like action right the idea with inception is you can plant an idea in someone's mind so they can make it their own right and that whole thing they're planting that idea in that guy's head so that when he wakes up he wants to start his own company and break up his father's company which is exactly what that other guy wanted to do but if he just told him to do it the guy wouldn't do it right how do you how do you get somebody to buy a place in Florida when it's their idea right now to rent a place on the Upper East

Side. That's for the next podcast. Wow. Part two coming up with Ryan Surhead, whether it is literally Hollywood references or it is the power of TV branding social media to breaking down what he's done and how he's done it. Ryan, your story's awesome. You have a beautiful family and unreal career. Where can people that haven't heard of you or that have had heard of you and want more of what you got, your real estate course, the podcast, the book. Give us everything and anything as to where someone could find more of Ryan Sirhant. You can go anywhere at Ryan Surhant. Ryan Surhant.com for all things, personal, course, books. You can go to Surhant.com and at Surhant for all things, real estate. And you can always email me, Ryan at Surhant. And if you're looking to buy or sell

anything, please let me know. I love it. And I will say, I've even seen him, he's taking the leap of faith to go on TikTok so you can even find him there killing it. Ryan, thank you so much for your time. We know how valuable is. We appreciate it. And we look forward to that part two. Thanks, man. All right. All the best. Dig, ding, ding. We are ringing in the closing bell with the one, the only, the beauty of all beauties, the voice of the viewer. The caguerious Canadian himself. David, Artow and David, you weren't on this one with Ryan Sirhan, but what did you think listen into all that back? This guy is a madman and a brilliant one at that.

I mean, it's a rainy morning here. We're recording the recap, but he talked about bringing the energy and everything you do Monday to Friday. It's that grind energy. I thought it was a really good episode. I think he's so well spoken. You can tell he's got a little actor vibes to him. He's a great salesman. I thought you guys had great good looking dude. I thought you guys had some great banter. I thought it was a really, really good episode. Yeah, I loved that. I mean, I think he's super sharp. What he's done is incredible. And that's what was one of the things I talked about is just in general. His resume is insane. It's like acting CEO, huge real estate agent. We were just in New York City for U.S. Open. And we passed his building, Sirhan,

real estate. I mean, it is massive in New York City. Huge, huge, huge, huge. But he did talk a lot about real estate and the dollar amounts he sells things at. And some of the ins and outs, I was wondering, one thing I could always rely on you for is, like, there was something said, there was jargon said where you're like, wait, what does that mean? Was there anything top of mind? Oh, yeah, 100%. You know, there always is. Taking it back to the start, he said he saved $20,000 to $25,000 to move to New York City. And he said it in a CD.

Now, I don't fully understand what a CD is. You guys said it a bunch of times, but what does it actually mean? I'm sure it's an acronym for something. It is. And so it's one of these things that actually was a product that was used much, much more back in the 70s and 80s and even parts of the 90s. So a CD, what it stands for actually is a certificate of deposit. It's this type of an account really that essentially the bank incentivizes you to hold your money with them. So David, what they would say is like, give me $10,000 and we're going to hold it.

You can't touch this money for one year, but I'm going to pay you a percent. percentage on it. The idea with that is you're giving that money to the bank. The bank is going to go make more money on it than they're going to pay you, but they're going to pay you a small percentage. The reason you probably haven't heard of those is because with savings account rates and interest rates being so low, they pay such a small fixed rate right now. So a CD rate, like if you're like Googling, like where can I get the best CD rate, you're probably going to find a rate in the like 0.5% to like 1%. So just slightly, slightly higher than a savings account. Okay. So what's a typical interest rate? Do you know? I have like a high interest

savings account where I get two and a half percent. And how would that compare to like an S&P 500? If I took $1,000 put it in a CD or put into S&P, like what are those rates we've returned? Dude, the fact you have a two and a half percent savings accounts on it. Yeah, it's pretty good. Keybank, shout out. I've never heard of your old employer. I refuse to believe that. I have a high interest savings account. Two and a half percent. Yeah. We're going to have to prove this. me later. I will. I'll go. It's probably next to where my Bitcoin in Ethereum. Have you found that yet? TBD.

Okay. More to come on that. So 2.5% is insane for savings account. I think your average, like your best CDs out there are going to be in the 0.5 to 1%. Maybe there's a crazy one out there that has the 2-3 percent, but then let's compare it to S&P 500. You know, year-to-date, S&P 500, this is crazy. 29.21 The S&P 500, if you invested in a year ago, you're up almost 30% of your money compared to these 2.5% savings accounts or 0.5% CDs, et cetera. Any red flags going on in your head when you see that?

Yeah. I mean, the first thing, which is one thing I think you've probably got to bring up at some point here is when he said buy or sell, right? So I think it's a good transition. One of the big issues is inflation. So the big, big number, everyone's got to look out as monthly. The consumer price index is what comes. comes out every single month. It's a monthly report and it shows everyone the rises in the cost

of goods year over year. And in August it was up, it climbed up to 5.3%. So think about the things that you're paying for, right? Like gasoline and food and shelter and furniture and all these things. What they do is they measure what the prices of these are doing. And just in the month of August, you're at 5.3% increase in that stuff within a year. And we know that the Fed's target is 2%. So without taking a full podcast talking about this, clearly we're seeing the price of goods outperform or out exceed the expectations of the Fed of this target of 2% inflation. So I'm seeing inflation everywhere with buying, with selling, and with the cost of goods. I actually saw a cool graphic on restart. I think a little while ago about

inflation per like industry or consumer goods and things that we buy, which is really interesting. So go check that out. One thing that he talked about too, and basically before he made his empire and his story is pretty organic was everyone needs to be willing to work for free and learning is your pay. He compared to higher education, grad school, internships, etc. You know, you're a big shot here, restart now, former corporate banker. Have you done anything for free? Did you do any internships?

Any fun things that, you know, maybe some people. are doing in their lives right now that in 10 years they can they can have you know some outlook to achieve on yeah i mean i think first of all you said it there you said it loud you said it clear internships are huge if you haven't heard of the intern queen i think she's a great resource too but even at this stage in my career david i have right now six businesses there's still some different areas that i've never explored that i would consider for sure doing an internship for free but i remember scratching and clawing to stay in buffalo for the summer my parents like you have to find a paid internship. And I found a paid internship at Target of all places. It's called the executive

internship. You rotated through each line of business from like logistics to pharmacy to front line. It was exhausting. It was an incredible learning experience. And I will never in my again work for anything retail ever again after that. Targe. Targe. They worked her people hard, man. They do. There's nothing like a retail job. I don't. think my body's ever been so sore my life than working retail jobs. I used to work at a clothing store. I was like, I'm exhausted. Exhausted the end of the day. It's, I mean, if you are working, if you listen to this and you're working in retail and don't absolutely love it, what are you doing? Yeah, wild. I didn't know you're a Tarjeet boy. Oh, yeah. That's awesome.

Well, I can't do this recap without talking about the $133 million mark. I mean, I just want to see a Zillow listing for that. was $133 million, blows my mind. You asked him if they, so one thing I wanted some clarification on, you asked him if they discounted his commission and he said, you would have thought they did. So does that mean he made more than he expected on it in commissions or less? Okay.

So here is how real estate agents are paid, right? What happens, especially when they sell, you're going to have 3% typically that would go to the selling agent, 3% to the buying agent. So they would split the commission of 6%. Now, that number could be negotiated five, to 6%. Now, if you're a really, really good agent, you cover both sides. You represent the seller and the buyer, and you'll get the full commission. For the sake of conversation, let's suppose

they split it. They split that 3%. You're talking commission on that of $3.9 million per real estate agent in your pocket. Now, if they did, let's say they negotiated to 5% and Ryan represented the buyer and the seller, that's $6.6 million. commission in his pocket. And that's one thing I've got to tell you, anyone out there, if you are selling your house and obviously then going to buy a house, negotiate with your real estate agent so that the one representing you on the selling transaction also represents you on the buying transaction, and you might be able to decrease that percentage from 6% to like 4% to 5%.

Yeah, it's really smart. And you can tell with those numbers when he said he was addicted to the game and the commission game $2,500 in an hour or $4 an hour, depending on how long it took to sell a house. I mean, those numbers are absolutely staggering. But I think the whole real estate market, house buying process can be one of those things where you just never learned in school or college with taxes, you know, lump that in with taxes and retirements and 401ks. So let me end this by asking one thing.

And I think you just gave a really good one as someone who went through the house buying process and the negotiation tactics. What's one more tip you can give the people at home when looking, if they're looking at buy, sell, work with a real estate agent. What is one more tip that you can give the people at home to make this unforeseen area a little easier in their lives? Yeah, I mean, we honestly, we could do a whole podcast on the buying or selling process. If you think we should, what I'm going to do is ask you to give us five-star ratings. Go in the comments and let us know. Do we do a full episode on buying or selling real estate and why? Residential commercial. Let us know.

And also, I just wanted to give a shout out to the Jay Nestor. He sent us a really nice review last week. And if you do, guys, put in your Instagram name. We'll call you out here. I got Chick P. Me gave us a great shout out. We're getting unbelievable feedback. Devin B. So if you can please continue to give us feedback on the reviews, five stars and put your Instagram handle, we would appreciate it. But to answer your question, I gave the one negotiating with your real estate agent. The second one is a very, very simple one. A lot of people are talking about selling right now, which I love because the market's at an all-time high. do not start selling before you really think about what your plan is going to be for buying

because if you're selling at all times highs you're buying at all time highs then that is probably the number one reason that people aren't selling isn't because the price they get is because what can they get for the cost and bang of that dollar once they do receive it so you have to look at both sides of the cohesion with the agent and the actual process and then just move to florida and then just move apparently that's the play. I love it. Well, guys, thank you so much for tuning into another episode of Trading Secrets. Remember, you can join our restart all access group. We actually have an NFL pool going right now. David, we've got to get you in there. All you do is pick who you think is going to win. Use the analytics. This isn't crazy. You literally heads or tails just say who you think is going to win. And every week we're giving away prizes. And I think the grand prize, we're still working on it because I already have it might be this really, really nice green mountain curig that can be used for high. brew and cold brew, but we're giving prizes away every single week. It literally costs nine bucks to join. Well, thank you guys for being here for another episode of Trading Secrets. We're

coming in hot next Monday with another episode you can't afford to miss. Don't forget to follow us at the home of Trading Secrets. That's restart underscore reset on Instagram. Living that dream Making that money Money Pay on me Making that money Living the dream