Are the Million Dollar Listing agents real?
Are the Million Dollar Listing agents real? Bravo’s Million Dollar Listing debuts its fifth season this week, but, thanks to the general curse of incredulity that hangs over reality TV audiences, the question of the show’s authenticity remains a common one. Fortunately for fans of Luis, Frederik, and Ryan, the high-powered agents’ credentials are legit! Million Dollar Listing‘s three real estate agents each have some seriously impressive eight- (and nine-) figure wheelings and dealings to their credit (though working in the most expensive market in America doesn’t hurt, either).
Luis D. Ortiz is still the baby of the Million Dollar Listing crew, though Season 5 will be his fourth on the show. He has eight years of real estate experience in total, and his biggest single claim to fame is probably helping Leonardo DiCaprio find a(nother) home. Over the past three years, Luis has closed sales worth a cumulative $100 million dollars–part of the reason why he heads his own team at Douglas Elliman Real Estate, itself regarded as the most prestigious (and high-profile) firm in the city.
It might be because of Luis, though, that some of the questions about Million Dollar Listing‘s veracity still get asked. Devoteés of the show will recall that Luis was at the center of a minor Photoshopping scandal back in 2013, when he “jazzed up” images of a listing–among other things, he included appliances that weren’t actually there–in order to get more people to attend showings. Luis was shown Photoshopping the images in a Season 2 episode of MDL; at the time, he rationalized his decision thusly: “If I put the real photos out there, nobody would come inside. A little white lie isn’t going to kill anybody!” However, when the New York Secretary of State started an investigation, Luis acknowledged his misdeed and apologized.
Fredrik Eklund–Sweden’s golden boy!–also heads his own sales team at Douglas Elliman, where he’s closed a whopping two billion ($2,000,000,000) in sales since getting his real estate license in 2003. In fact, Fredrik became such a dynamo so quickly that New York couldn’t contain him: he opened a Scandinavian branch, Eklund Stockholm New York, in 2009, and that company went on to become “the #1 high-end brokerage of Scandinavia.” (For those of you wondering about how lucrative this sort of wheeling and dealing is, Fredrik made $20 million in commissions–not counting Bravo money for Million Dollar Listing–in 2014 alone.)
And, just for funsies, click here to check out the most expensive listing currently on Fredrik Eklund’s docket: a 4,019 square foot Park Avenue penthouse that costs $32,250,000 and will set you back a whopping $$15,850 per month in homeowner’s fees and property taxes.
Mr. Ryan Serhant is arguably even more successful than Fredrik: he likewise heads his own sales team, which the Wall Street Journal named the #1 team in New York (and #6 in the entire country) for 2015. Ryan’s tentacles are everywhere: the Serhant real estate brand has agents in Manhattan, the Hamptons, Miami, and Los Angeles. But, as devoteés of Million Dollar Listing know, Ryan’s passions aren’t limited to property. He graduated from Hamilton College in 2006 with a double major in English and theatre, and has acted in a number of productions, perhaps none more notable than his 19-episode turn as Frank Walsh on As The World Turns from 2007 to 2008.
As for contemporary acting, you can catch Ryan, Fredrik, and Louis in action when Million Dollar Listing airs Thursday nights at 9 PM on Bravo.
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(Photo credits: Are the Million Dollar Listing agents real via Facebook)
