Bravo TV real estate celebrity joins 'Beverly Hills Housewives' star in move to Palm Beach County

A reality-TV star on the Emmy-nominated “Million Dollar Listing New York” is entering Palm Beach County’s luxury housing fray with an office opening in Delray Beach next month.

Ryan Serhant, who was one of three Realtors followed by the Bravo TV series for nine seasons before it was canceled in 2021, founded his own firm, Serhant, in the fall of 2020 and has since announced expansion plans for seven east coast markets, including South Florida.

Serhant is the second reality-TV Realtor attracted to the Palm Beach County market. Mauricio Umansky, who appears on the “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” with his wife Kyle Richards, launched an office of his firm The Agency in Palm Beach Gardens this year.

The move by Serhant to expand from the Big Apple to South Florida’s Gold Coast makes sense with the increase in New Yorkers moving to the Sunshine State since the pandemic, Realtors said.

“It’s abundantly clear that South Florida is where the major wealth is going,” said Antonio Liguori, a broker associate with the Pascal Liguori Group at Premier Estate Properties. “What was a second- or third-home market for wealthy people is now a primary home market and they have second homes elsewhere.”

While Florida has always attracted New York residents, the number of people making the state their permanent residence has jumped markedly in recent years.

In 2022, 61,205 New York residents traded in their Empire State driver’s license for one with a Florida address. That was a 35% increase from the six-year average of 2016 through 2021, according to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.

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New Jersey was runner-up after New York for the highest number of license trade-ins with 30,837, which was 28% higher than the average of the previous six years. California ranked third with 28,957, which was 57% higher than the average.

Where is Ryan Serhant now?

“It was just a matter of time before we planted our flag there,” Serhant said about Palm Beach County. “South Florida is obviously a great complementary market to our headquarters and the business we have in New York.”

And Palm Beach County isn’t unfamiliar to Serhant.

In 2021, he co-represented the buyer of the beachfront home at 535 N. County Road in Palm Beach, which set the record for the highest residential sale on the island at a recorded $122.7 million. That sale was surpassed in March with the $155 million sale of the former Palm Beach compound of the late Rush Limbaugh.

Serhant has also partnered with Palm Beach County broker Christian Prakas, who has nearly two decades experience in local real estate. Prakas said the Delray Beach office at 648 George Bush Blvd. will open May 1 with offices in Boca Raton and northern Palm Beach County opening over the next two years.

Prakas said he watched the first few seasons of "Million Dollar Listing New York" and took a Serhant-created training course where he got to know the New York Realtor.

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“He’s just an authentic person,” Prakas said about Serhant. “He’s not just a figurehead. He’s very accessible and very involved in the business.”

At 6-foot-3, Serhant, 38, originally wanted to be an actor. In New York, he found jobs as a hand model and was in several episodes of the soap opera “As the World Turns.” He began his real estate career in 2008 and was cast on "Million Dollar Listing New York" in 2010. The show first aired in 2012.

Serhant was known on the show for his dry sense of humor and antics such as jumping into the swimming pool at a listing party hosted by castmate Fredrik Eklund, and dressing like a lion to sell a hidden loft in a salute to “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”

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“Good luck to him,” said Lang Realty broker associate Ryan Greenblatt about Serhant’s new office and the challenge of breaking into a new market. “I don’t think it will be easy for him, but obviously he has a brand and there is plenty of business to go around.”

At least 56 of the world’s wealthiest people have strong residential ties to the town of Palm Beach, according to an analysis by the Palm Beach Daily News of Forbes.com data. In 2021, there were 47 billionaires in Palm Beach.

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West Palm Beach has also earned the nickname “Wall Street South” for an influx of financial and technology firms bringing high-earning executives who may not be able to buy on the island, but will likely look for a home in coastal Palm Beach County.

Although the median home price in Palm Beach County is down slightly from its June high of $620,000, agents that deal in high-end properties said the luxury market remains strong. Between March 3 and April 3, 34 Palm Beach County homes sold for more than $5 million, including seven that were $10 million or more, according to the online brokerage firm Redfin.

Douglas Elliman Executive Director of Luxury Sales Bonnie Heatzig in Boca Raton said she had three high-end clients flying in the first week of April from New York to look at homes. She also recently showed property to clients relocating from near San Francisco.

She believes families from out of state are moving to Florida long term because clients often refer their relatives to her.

“That’s how I know people are here to stay,” Heatzig said. “They are planting roots.”

Kimberly Miller is a veteran journalist for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA Today Network of Florida. She covers real estate and how growth affects South Florida's environment. Subscribe to The Dirt for a weekly real estate roundup. If you have news tips, please send them to [email protected]. Help support our local journalism, subscribe today. 

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Bravo's Ryan Serhant expands real estate firm to Palm Beach County