Ryan Serhant is everywhere—and that omnipresence is no accident.
You might recognize the 41-year-old from his nine seasons on Million Dollar Listing New York, his own Netflix series Owning Manhattan, or a for-sale sign bearing his name as his real estate empire expands across more than a dozen states.
But none of it happened overnight.
When Serhant graduated from college, his ambitions were modest. He didn’t have a clear career path or a master plan. Instead, he had just one goal: move to New York City and figure the rest out later.
“It wasn’t about finding happiness. It wasn’t about chasing success,” Serhant told Fortune. “At least initially, it was, if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere.”
To get there, he used what little money he had saved working on a ranch in Colorado and took on whatever jobs he could to stay afloat. That included becoming a hand model for $150 an hour—money he later used to help fund his first real estate ventures—and handing out as many as 500 Equinox gym flyers a day.
The flyer job wasn’t about a paycheck. In exchange, Serhant gained free access to the gym and, more importantly, its affluent clientele.
It was an early lesson in the networking strategy he still swears by today. Serhant follows what he calls the “two Cs”: always offer a compliment and find something in common.
And that mindset extended well beyond gyms and casting calls. “I never wanted to be beholden to anyone else,” Serhant said. “I never wanted a boss who could hire me on one day, fire me on another day. I wanted to build something for myself.”
And build something for himself he did. Today, Serhant is the CEO of SERHANT, a brokerage and media company that closed more than $6 billion in sales last year and regularly markets nine-figure penthouses to billionaire buyers.
Serhant’s secret to build a national brand—while never forgetting his roots
Breaking into real estate is notoriously difficult. Thousands of agents enter the industry every year, and many leave within just a few years, citing inconsistent pay, brutal competition, and burnout.
Serhant knew that simply selling apartments wouldn’t be enough.
“I believed even early on, the brand was never going to be about the property, but was going to be about the person,” he said.
That philosophy shaped everything from his social media presence to his television career to the way he structured his brokerage. While many CEOs distance themselves from hands-on work once they reach the top, Serhant insists on staying close to the grind that made him successful in the first place. That’s why he personally still sells properties—even when he has hundreds of agents working for him, too.
“I think it’s really important for CEOs to never let go of the thing that got them there in the first place,” he added.
Just in the last year, Serhant has represented Andy Cohen in the sale of his $12 million West Village apartment, Dave Portnoy in his purchase of a $27.75 million Florida Keys home, and a British investor’s sale of a $72 million Palm Beach mansion.
Still, not every day is as easy as it may seem to his millions of TV show viewers or social media followers
“I have tough days all the time. Every day is tough,” Serhant said. “I would not wish ‘CEO’ on anyone.”
What keeps him going isn’t all about money, which he called a “moving target,” but realizing tomorrow is the next opportunity to make change and tackle goals. Without the latter in particular, work can become endless: “Otherwise I feel like I wake up running a marathon with no end in sight.”
In 2026, Serhant is focused on pushing into new creative territory while scaling SERHANT as an AI-first brokerage. With plans to more than triple its state footprint, he’s still making the same bet on momentum that took him from handing out gym flyers to securing nine-figure deals.
The post Ryan Serhant started his career hand modeling for $150 an hour—it paid for his real estate firm, and now he sells 9-figure penthouses to billionaires appeared first on Fortune.
