TUNE INTO THIS WEEK'S EPISODE »

I recently sat down with Fredrik Eklund, founder of the #1 Eklund Gomez team at Douglas Elliman. With nearly $30 billion in career sales and over 140 sold-out buildings, Fredrik is one of the most accomplished new development brokers in the country.

What most people don't know is that before the TV deals and the billions sold, Fredrik co-founded a software company in Stockholm in the late 90s that consisted of a proto-social network and AI chatbot, years before either had a name. He arrived in New York in 2003 with no clients, no rolodex, and a vocabulary that didn't yet include the word "escrow." His first deal came from spotting a stranger peering through the window of his nearly empty Chelsea brokerage. After convincing the client to give him the listing and painting the apartment himself, a bidding war unfolded, resulting in a $16,000 commission check. This was when Fredrik knew he had a path to follow.

He eventually pitched a self-produced TV pilot to Bravo, and received a call three years later that Million Dollar Listing New York was greenlit, and he was already cast. Over 11 years and 150 episodes, the show became an engine for his business in ways no one could anticipate.

Today, he's in Miami, and we're building together.

• Being unapologetically yourself is the single greatest competitive advantage in real estate.

   

• The mindset that took him from his first $525,000 listing on West 20th Street to selling some of the most expensive real estate in the world.

   

• What separates new development from resale, and the process Fredrik brings to every project - from floor plans, to amenities, to sales galleries.

   

• The way buyer psychology shifts depending on whether capital is coming from New York, LA, or internationally.

   

• Building a team culture that feels like family, and why that intangible is what has kept Eklund Gomez at the top for over two decades.

   

• What Fredrik tells agents today who want to reach the top of an industry where the top 10% of brokers account for over 90% of all transactions.

   

• How Fredrik spent years lying in bed in Stockholm visualizing himself crossing Central Park in the fog, and why he believes that kind of deliberate manifestation is inseparable from the results that followed.

For Fredrik, it has always come down to ambition, authenticity, and an unrelenting will to compete. The results speak for themselves.

MISSED AN EPISODE? CATCH UP HERE »