The market may be difficult right now, but there are still opportunities to be had for those willing to work for them.
“2023 is either going to be the worst year ever if you don’t pay attention or it’s going to be the biggest year of your entire career,” said Ryan Serhant, CEO, broker and founder of SERHANT. “But you have to actually work at it.”
In his keynote at HousingWire Annual earlier this month, Serhant shared tactics and insights on seizing opportunities and creating growth in a changing market. Here are three key takeaways from his talk:
1. Be proactive, not reactive
“The first thing that I learned when starting my company, when really starting my real estate career and when being in a tough market, is you have to be game-time ready at all times,” Serhant said.
He told the story of buying and renovating a townhouse in Brooklyn, and the panic he felt during two hurricanes in 2021 when that home began to flood. He hadn’t prepared for the situation, so he was forced to act reactively, trying and failing to curb the flooding several different ways. Ultimately, he had to do expensive repairs on the house – and this time he was proactive and made sure there were plenty of drains built into it in case of another emergency.
“I learned a massive lesson from that, which is never just act reactively. You must be proactive, especially in business,” Serhant said. “Because guess what? Bad times are going to happen. It’s just inevitable. Markets are going to go up, markets are going to go down.”
2. Create what you need
Serhant also said that you have to make sure that you create what you need. You have to do the things you have to do in order to do the things you want to do.
“Are you creating what you need in order to get into that next level, or are you so focused on just doing what you want to do?” he said.
He said the biggest difference between professionals and amateurs is that professionals make decisions based on their commitments and amateurs make decisions based on how they feel.
Serhant’s biggest fear when he started his own company wasn’t that no one was going to hire him – it was that the right people weren’t going to hire him. He said there are always going to be buyers, sellers and people who need loans, but to get what you want, you have to create what you need.
“You’re always going to have opportunities, but is it the opportunity that you actually want?” he said.
When he created Serhant Signature, the high-net-worth department at his brokerage, his goal was to handle those signature, high-net-worth deals.
“I put that out there: signature, high net worth. Anytime I talked to anybody, I put it out into the world. Had I done any $10 million-plus deals the day I started the firm? No,” he said. “But I created what I needed. I needed to be able to put out into the world that I do high-net-worth deals. And by putting it out there, they’re going to come to me.”
And it’s worked for him. In early 2021, Serhant represented the buyer for the most expensive home sale ever in the state of Florida and the second most expensive single-family home sale in the U.S. for just under $140 million.
3. Harness the power of follow-up
Serhant said he preaches the power of follow-up, especially in correcting markets.
He shared an anecdote about running into someone he sold to years ago and had continued following up with. The man hadn’t gotten back to Serhant in five years, but he also hadn’t told him to stop following up, so Serhant spoke with him briefly and ended up buying him dinner. The next day, the man responded to an old email of Serhant’s saying he’d like to reconnect and maybe go look at some properties.
According to Serhant, they ended up making plans to look at properties in the $30 to $50 million range, simply because he followed up with the man for five years, happened to be in the same restaurant as him, said hello and paid for his dinner.
“It was an investment in that relationship,” he said. “You have to master the art of that follow-up. Those deals are going to come back to you left and right.”
Serhant said he didn’t care about the deals he hadn’t done with the man over those five years – instead, he cares about the future.
“If you do work for the future sale, you’re going to be so much more successful,” he said. “You’ve just got to put it out into the world.”
Ultimately, Serhant said, it’s okay if your income fluctuates over the next 18 months because your focus should be on your long-term goals in order to succeed.
“The whole reason you’re here is because we are all long-term greedy,” he said. “Business success secret No. 1: short-term greed gets crushed. Long-term greed will win. You want to have that endurance for the win.”
Serhant shared these tips and more at this year’s HousingWire Annual in Scottsdale. If you didn’t have the chance to go, we have you covered with HousingWire Annual: The Remix, a virtual event that features sessions from the event. Register for free here.