In his mind’s eye, Ryan Serhant sees one future for real estate: Compass versus SERHANT.
And, of course, as he sees it, SERHANT. has the leading edge.
Ryan Serhant | Credit: AJ Canaria Creative Services
“Listen, I think every firm is great,” Serhant told Inman founder Brad Inman on stage at Inman Connect New York on Wednesday. “But I do think that by 2030, there will only be two major real estate firms of note. One will be Compass, and one will be us. One will focus on property as a platform. One will focus on the person as a platform.”
“Everybody else, I’m sorry to say, I think will be an afterthought. And if you could see what we are working on in the background and what we’re building and what we still have to come through this year… I’ve never felt more optimistic and more excited,” he added.
“Otherwise, I wouldn’t do this. Like, my life is fine. You know? Like, I don’t want to be a CEO. I have this innate need to solve the problems that we’re solving for the people that are with us.”
Serhant’s confidence isn’t unfounded, with the CEO revealing that the nail-biting office scene that capped the second season of Owning Manhattan led to a $45 million investment in SERHANT. The founder said the investment is accelerating the development of S.MPLE, an artificial intelligence-powered ecosystem that offloads administrative work to what Serhant calls “a team of AI agents.”
“[It’s] like DoorDash for work. What you care about is the delivery, and you don’t have to go do the shopping, you don’t have to go get the food, if you don’t want to. You can be as integrated in the system as you want to be, or you can be totally hands-off,” he said.
“We have agents across Florida that … don’t even know how to run their own CMA. It’s not about creating a better CRM. It’s imagining a world where you don’t even have to use one.”
“My goal is not to replace salespeople; it is to multiply them. The interesting thing in raising money is that a lot of our competitors, behind closed doors, spend a lot of time talking about replacing the agent and replacing salespeople. And that’s how they’re going to disrupt,” he added. “But how do you take singular salespeople and give them a team of AI agents to do the work instead? [On] the traditional team, as we know, it’s no longer important to be tech-enabled because everybody is. It’s now important to be AI-empowered.”
Serhant said S.MPLE has gone through three phases, with the first two focused on helping agents understand the most effective way to instruct their AI assistants to handle and automate tasks, such as scheduling buyer tours and creating listing presentations. However, the latest phase will sort of reverse the relationship, with S.MPLE telling agents what to focus on each day.
“It’s a completely new world, and I have the freedom and flexibility to invent and innovate every single day to benefit the agent,” he said.
Serhant said his future-focused mindset doesn’t stop with AI. The founder has attracted a younger agent base — the average SERHANT. agent is 28 years old — and has turned his attention to what tomorrow’s consumer might want, which could involve eschewing homeownership altogether.
“I’m just very, very future-focused,” he said. “What’s the buying and selling process going to be like in four years? Who’s going to be making those decisions? Who’s going to be writing checks? What is the home purchasing process going to be like? What people want to buy homes? Will they be able to afford them? What’s inventory going to be?”
“A 28-year-old today who’s not in this business, what do you think the dream is?” he added. “Very rarely do we see someone say ‘homeownership’ the way they used to. So what is that connection, and how do we, as an industry, take advantage of the future instead of trying to build from where we’ve been the last few years?”
“I think that’s going to be the issue.”
