Over the past few years, SERHANT. has grown from a heavily New York City-concentrated firm with roughly 650 agents to a brokerage that spans 19 states, plus Washington, D.C., with over 2,000 agents. Despite the expansion and growth of his firm, founder Ryan Serhant says he doesn’t think growth alone is a business plan.
“I understand that growth is the business plan for some businesses, but it’s not been for me,” Serhant told HousingWire. “I made a promise in 2020, when we started the company from an abandoned COVID -19 office, writing down ideas for the company on construction paper, that we would grow if we earned it. If we earned the right to be in different markets, if we earned the right to have employees want to come work here that was great, but I was not going to buy anyone. We were going to earn everyone.”
Six years later, Serhant said that thesis remains true.
Originally, he noted that he did not want to expand the firm outside of New York, but demand from agents and brokers all over the world who joined his Sell It education platform caused him to rethink this.
“We had agents like Paulina Matteson in Arizona saying that as soon as SERHANT. was ready to open up in their market, they wanted to help and this was back in 2021,” Serhant said.
At first he was skeptical, but reassurance from local agents like Matteson, who would go on to be a founding agent of SERHANT.’s Arizona operation, that the firm’s presence would be a game changer for agents and consumers in the state, helped Serhant decide to take the plunge into expanding the company.
“Demand is just really strong,” he said. “We’ve grown just over 1,000% since the middle of 2023. This year alone, just through June, we already organically recruited, with $0 spent on acquiring customers, more volume than we did in the entirety of 2025.”
Not a home for every agent
That being said, Serhant noted that the company does not take every agent or broker that wishes to join. When the company first started in New York City, Serhant said they would not take an agent unless they had over $500,000 in annual rolling gross commission income.
“We wanted people that we could take from $500,000 and make them into multi-million dollar earners,” he said. “Today, because every market is a bit different, our average founder in every market we open does a minimum of $50 million in volume a year and our average principal agents do north of $20 million in volume a year depending on their market.”
He noted that the firm says ‘no’ to more agents than they accept, even if those agents meet the sale requirements.
“As long as you are aligned with our purpose, you’re a good person and a builder, this can be a great fit. We are probably not the right company to come to if you want to coast and not grow your brand or your business,” Serhant said.
Serhant added that the company also does not take brand new agents unless they are part of an apprenticeship program with a broker or a team leader in their market.
Purpose and people
Even as the expansion of SERHANT. has picked up, with the brokerage launching in markets like Boston, Texas, California and Colorado just this year, Serhant said he continues to build his company focusing on the four Ps — purpose, people, product and profits.
“My finance team hates me because even though we are incredibly profitable, we reinvest everything back into the business because I focus on purpose first,” he said. “Our mission is to help the entire world move forward. If you are buying, selling, renting or developing real estate, I want you to work with SERHANT. where it makes sense. So, I want to align myself with people who believe in that mission and who understand that we are an AI native business. If you have the right purpose, the right people and you understand the product and the market fit, then you never have to worry about profits.”
Serhant said he has had several competitors approach him about his firm possibly acquiring them over the years, but he has stuck to his promise of not acquiring any other companies.
“I haven’t needed to follow that acquisition strategy because all of their agents are eventually going to come to me anyway because we are a better experience for them and we offer a better value proposition,” he said.
In their first year at SERHANT., he said their average agent earns 144% more than they did at their past firm, noting that in the past few years this has typically been in an even slower market than before. At first, Serhant said he believes much of the firm’s organic growth in new markets came from the brand and the “consumer mind share” it possessed. Now though, internal surveys show agents are coming to the firm for its technology platform S.MPLE.
“They see what S.MPLE can do and they want it,” Serhant said. “It replaces all administrative work and it has totally changed the way we operate because it gives every agent time back to do what they do best, which is sell homes and spend time with clients or even spend more time with their families instead of doing these mundane tasks.”
‘I just do Tik Tok dances’
Serhant also credits his leadership team at the company, which he has crafted to include some of the industry’s greatest leaders from other brands, including former Douglas Elliman CFO Natalie Vitebsky, former Anywhere CFO Andrew Napurano, who serves as COO, former Keller Williams’ education lead Bonnie Sue Lovelace and Greg Chan, who serves as the firm’s chief technology officer, coming to the firm from positions at Plaid, Amazon Prime and Microsoft.
“I have a whole team, and they are the best of the best. That was what was so great about starting fresh, I was able to go and get the Avengers of the industry to be on my team. They are the reason we are where we are,” he said. “It is not just me. I just dance on Tik Tok.”
While Serhant said there is plenty of agent support for expansion in every major city in the U.S. he said a focus on maintaining the firm’s culture limits the pace of expansion.
“We can only open so many at one time without diluting the brand and diluting the support we have,” he said. “Culture is really important to me, and I don’t want to grow too fast even if everybody wants us to grow fast because then you lose the magic and the energy you have.”
