Ryan Serhant Loves What 'Selling Sunset' Has Done For Real Estate TV: 'Shows Have to Evolve' (Exclusive)
The 'Million Dollar Listing: New York' star also reveals his latest project to PEOPLE
Ryan Serhant moved on from Bravo's Million Dollar Listing: New York last year but remains as busy as ever.
The realtor tells PEOPLE he has "lots of fun stuff" in the works, including expanding SERHANT, the brokerage firm he launched in 2020, into more states by the end of the year and overseeing Listed, a YouTube channel he describes as HGTV for Gen Z.
"I like building," he says. "I like breaking things. I like putting them back together. I like just waking up and doing whatever is on my mind without restriction. And that's what it means to build your own company. You get to just create; it's the freedom of creation."
For his latest project, Serhant, 39, teamed with Bilt Rewards — a program that helps customers earn rewards on rent that they can use toward home ownership and other perks like free fitness classes.
Bilt tapped Serhant for the Sept. 1 episode of "Rent Free," an interactive Family Feud-style game show on the program's app where celebrities and internet personalities play to help members win free rent.
Bilt also announced an expanded partnership with SoulCycle that includes a special promotion. On Sept. 1, one rider in every Rent Day Ride at over 50 SoulCycle locations will win up to $2,500 to pay their rent for the month.
Serhant's on-screen appearances aren't limited to apps. He played himself in the Aug. 10 episode of the Sex and the City revival And Just Like That....
"The role was written as 'Ryan Serhant: Hotshot Realtor,' and I took a photo of that," he says of the role. "It was a great day— Sarita's [Choudhury] amazing. The whole cast and crew basically make a movie every single episode. It's nuts."
Asked to weigh in on a previous report that Million Dollar Listing: New York could be making a comeback, Serhant could only say that "something's coming."
He says he keeps in touch with his castmates on social media and through working together on real estate deals.
Related: Ryan Serhant is Leaving Million Dollar Listing New York as Show Pauses Production
"I just sold a $50 million penthouse in Soho with Fredrik [Eklund]," he says. "Other than that, my daughter is best friends with Steve Gold's daughter, and Luis [Ortiz] just came back on the scene. I see him on social now. But we're all just busy doing our things."
As for other popular real estate shows, Serhant says he's seen parts of the Netflix hit Selling Sunset.
"What I love is what it's really done for the genre," he says of the show. "I think shows have to evolve, think genres have to evolve, attention spans evolve, the way people consume content evolves, and I think it's fun. Very different from anything that we've ever created, but I think it's fun, and I am excited to see what else everybody creates going forward, like, what does real estate reality look like next year?"
Related: From 'Hand Modeling' to Pay Rent to Making Millions: 'MDLNY'' s Ryan Serhant Tells All in New Book
Serhant says the “most stressful” show he’s done was Bravo’s Million Dollar Listing: Ryan’s Renovation, which followed his quest to gut the multimillion-dollar Brooklyn townhouse, where he now lives with his wife, Emilia Bechrakis Serhant, and daughter Zena.
Last month, Ryan posted a sweet photo of Zena, now 4, on Instagram and wrote that he planned to take a break from social media to focus on family.
"You talk to anyone who's a lot older than you, and whether they're 10 years older or they're 20 years older, no matter what you're feeling right now, what stress, how you look, how much you weigh, how busy you are, anyone older than you would give everything to be you right now," he says. "I just turned 39 this summer, so I think about Ryan at 59. Ryan at 59 would probably love to be Ryan at 39, even though Ryan at 39 is tired and stressed out and exhausted, and interest rates are over 7%. And so I think it's important to appreciate the journey a bit more sometimes."
"I'm not going to look back and remember all the emails I sent," he adds. "So I'm going to look back and remember Zena laughing and riding a bike for the first time and riding a horse for the first time, and I don't want to have my phone strapped to my hand for that moment."
Ryan and Emilia celebrated seven years of marriage in July.
"You have to be with somebody you appreciate the silence with," he says. "I think that's important to find in a real partner, a real counterweight to what you're doing. That balance, I think, is pretty crucial."
Ryan's goal before he turns 40 next year? "Take over the world, one house at a time."
For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!
Read the original article on People.