Three and a half years of calls, texts, lunch invites — that’s how long it took Ryan Serhant to get Peter Zaitzeff to even take a meeting. Finally, Zaitzeff agreed to meet up, but he made it clear that he was happy at Corcoran and wasn’t looking to make a move.
Fast forward six months, and viewers of Owning Manhattan see the results of Serhant’s persistence pay off. In a meeting at 200 Amsterdam, with “hundreds of millions of dollars of inventory to sell in one building,” Serhant offered Zaitzeff the position of sales director of the entire building, thus sealing the deal.
“He convinced me that the opportunity I would have at SERHANT. — with a lot of hard work — was a better opportunity than what I currently had. And he did a really, really, really good job of doing that,” Zaitzeff said.
With more than $4.8 billion in sales and 500-plus transactions, it’s not hard to see why Ryan Serhant wanted Zaitzeff on the team at his then-4-year-old brokerage. But how did Zaitzeff build the type of career that made him such a sought-after target?
Humble beginnings
“I always wanted to be an investment banker my whole life. The first girl I dated, her dad was a big investment banker. And I saw him, and I was like, ‘That guy is super successful. I want to be like that guy,’” Zaitzeff said.
Despite not having great grades, he got a job at Merrill Lynch in the private wealth division out of college. However, at the time, his mother and brother had just started a restaurant, Zaitzeff Burgers, which eventually expanded to several locations in New York City, before closing in 2018. Out of “obligation,” Zaitzeff put off his financial career and worked in the family restaurant business for about five years before getting married.
At the time, he lived in a walk-up on Bond Street. Through friends, he met successful residential broker Dennis Mangone, who lived at 40 Bond, Ian Traeger’s green building.
“I was like, ‘That guy’s fancy. That guy’s successful. I want to be like that guy,’” Zaitzeff said. “So I basically pursued Dennis [Mangone] … Six months down the road, I was like, ‘Dennis, it’s the summer. I’m 28 years old. I’ll work for you for free as an unpaid intern.’ And so, I eventually convinced him to give me an internship.”
A foot in the door
He finally got the three-month internship he had persistently pursued.
“During that time, I learned a lot about the business because Dennis Mangone [was] sort of a rainmaker in new development … He worked with Ian Traeger. He knew him from Studio 54. He worked with Steve Witkoff, who eventually basically made my career. And a number of other very, you know, fancy people,” Zaitzeff said.
At the end of the internship, Zaitzeff drove Mangone’s car down to Florida, and en route, Mangone, who Zaitzeff describes as “a character,” hit the phone out of his hand and said, “I’m not hiring you. You’re not focused enough. Talk to Susan de França.” She was the head of new development at Douglas Elliman at the time.
Opportunity knocks
She knew enough about Zaitzeff to hire him at $50,000 a year with the promise of some great new developments coming up. From there, he was put on 150 Charles, the building that made his career.
“150 Charles was the quickest sellout, probably ever in the history of New York City, at three months. At the time, we sold for $3,300 a square foot, which was a record for the West Village,” Zaitzeff said.
How? He memorized the offering plan, the bible of what the developer has to deliver to their clients, from front to back. Not only that, but floor plans, views, etc., because the building is complex with 80 different floor plans over 91 units.
“Leonard Steinberg, Raphael De Niro, Darren Sukenik and Madeline Hult Elghanayan were the salespeople on it. So I basically got an Ivy League MBA in the course of three months. Because I knew everything, they brought me onto showings,” he said. “And so I was meeting with the Jon Bon Jovis of the world. The Ben Stillers of the world. The captains of industry that we sold to at that time, and not just that, but those guys, those four brokers from their generation, I see as probably the best brokers of their generation.”
All four brought distinctly different expertise to the table. He describes Madeline Hult Elghanayan as very “uptown,” Raphael De Niro as “numbers-driven,” Leonard Steinberg as “polished” and Darren Sukenik as an “old-school, pitbull Long Island broker.”
The career-maker
Then, Steve Witkoff, now the assistant to President Trump and Special Envoy for Peace Missions, noticed Zaitzeff and put him on 10 Madison Square West. And then 111 Murray. And then a building in LA.
After commuting to LA for a year, Zaitzeff decided it was too much and made the move to Corcoran.
“I entered into a luxury market from Day 1 because I was at 150 Charles and because I was surrounded by these sort of rainmakers … yes, I worked really, really hard, but I was also lucky,” he said.
Lessons for agents
Be persistent.
“It took me six months to even get my foot in the door,” he said. “So if it takes you six months to get your foot in the door, how long is it going to take you to get your foot into luxury?”
The biggest lesson of all: Know more and be better than everyone else.
“I was lucky to be put onto this project, but I also knew a lot about the project to put myself in a really lucky position to be on showings. Because as an assistant … you’re not going on showings most of the time with the selling brokers. The only reason I was there is because I knew more than those guys. And they knew it. So they were like, ‘We need him on here because he knows everything. He knows about the numbers.’ And that’s only because I memorized the offering plan.”
“I tell everybody that works for me now, I’ve been doing this for 15 years almost, ‘In order for you to be good, you need to know more and be better than me, right? Know more; be better than me. Because then, you are a value add.’”
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