‘Million Dollar Listing New York’ season seven: the premiere!

The Bravo series about buying and selling in New York is back

It's season seven of Million Dollar Listing New York, where three brokers—Fredrik Eklund, Ryan Serhant, and Steve Gold—show the world what it takes to sell high-priced New York City apartments. Check in each week for recaps.

It's that time again—time for Million Dollar Listing New York! The show's seventh season builds off of what happened last year, which, to very briefly recap: Fredrik and his husband, Derek, found out that they were going to be parents, to twins no less; Ryan decides to buy a brokerage in Brooklyn and expand the Serhant Team; and new guy Steve was, well, the new guy, whose arc ended with a foreshadowing about possible romantic drama to come.

The seventh season picks up about a year later, where all of this left off; Fredrik's babies are here, Ryan has a huge Brooklyn team, and Steve has his own team working for him at the now-defunct Town (and has shorn his luxurious locks). The softening market is a common theme; each broker notes that it's a buyer's market, with properties taking longer to sell, and ultimately closing for less than the price tag. (Can we expect drama around this during the new season? Almost certainly.)

And the episode teaser promises plenty more things to come: Deals! Ridiculous views! Over-the-top parties! Sellers and developers angry because no one wants to buy overpriced apartments! 50 Cent! Turtle pools! You get the idea. For now, let's dive in to the premiere.

Ryan

"I try to do most things now as a team," says Ryan, and he's talking about his marriage to Emilia—which is why he (gasp!) shaves off his beard—but he's also talking about the 60-odd brokers he's brought on to Nest Seekers since buying that Brooklyn brokerage. He's managing people, he's bringing in huge numbers—$1.13 billion in listings, and $838 million in closed sales.

Basically, Ryan feels like he's on top of the world, and he wants to keep it that way. "We're going to make this the greatest fucking office in the history of Brooklyn real estate," he claims, in typical braggadocious Ryan fashion.

Nest Seekers International

Andrea's listing at 111 Hudson Street.

This episode, however, is not the episode that will make Ryan feel like he's on top of the world. He visits a Tribeca apartment that he sold in one day back in 2010, and the seller, Andrea, happily shows off her all-custom-everything renovation. But there's a catch—she doesn't want Ryan to sell it. She's getting her real estate license, and wants to sell it herself—and she's pretty sure she can get $8 million for the place. (Sidebar: If this is in any way realistic, chime in in the comments—this recapper is pretty sure it's not.)

Eventually, she comes around, and the listing is Ryan's. (According to StreetEasy, it's been on the market now for … 143 days!) And Andrea—who just passed her licensing exam—is part of his team. Can this end well? We'll see!

The episode ends at a Q& for real estate brokers that Ryan organized, and which Steve and Fredrik are participating in as panelists, because #synergy.

Someone asks a question about the size of each broker's teams, and Steve uses the opportunity to needle Ryan a little bit. "My people don't leave me," Steve quips, and Ryan is pissed. "Did he just publicly throw a jab at me?" Ryan says, incredulously. Seems like it! (Backstory: Last April, the Real Deal reported that several Nest Seekers brokers—including Danny Nassi, who figured into MDLNY's sixth season—left the, um, nest, seeking new opportunities.) "That's something I'm struggling with now."

He gets in Steve's face about it, accusing him of talking shade when he doesn't know the full scenario. "If I wanted to talk shade, I could talk about how they left because you don't pay them enough," Steve tells Ryan. Ohhh, snap.

"If I knew Steve was just going to come up on stage and be a dick, I wouldn't have invited him in the first place," Ryan huffs. Last season was relatively drama-free, so this back-and-forth is going to make things interesting, to say the least.

Fredrik

Fredrik's big development this season: He's a dad! To twins! Their names are Fredrik and Milla, and they're cute, but they're also … babies. "I think I can handle stress, but this is a whole different kind of level," he says, sleepily. Getting yelled at by difficult clients is no fun, but at least you can try and reason with them—there's no reasoning with tiny, screaming infants.

Fredrik has been on paternity leave for two months, but "there's a roaring New York City calling my name," as he puts it. Still, he says, "I have to be so efficient" now that there are kids to think about.

Fredrik leaps back in with a famous client: Rebel Wilson. He starts off by showing her Steiner East Village, because "a lot of celebrities are looking at [the East Village] for the first time and saying, 'I want to live there.'" (Hmm.) She wants private outdoor space, and she's apparently very familiar with real estate, so Fredrik knows he has to be on the level with her. The apartment they look at has 1,500 square foot terrace (good!), but people can see onto the terrace from the building (bad!). She's self-effacing about it, but demurs because "maybe it's not suitable for an actress in the public eye."

Corcoran

A penthouse at 443 Greenwich Street, which Fredrik will try to sell this season.

So they move on to Tribeca—specifically, a penthouse at 443 Greenwich Street, a celeb-favorite (and, not at all a spoiler alert, where Wilson ended up buying an apartment). Fredrik checks the place out first, swooning over its marble bathroom and kitchen (he's a #marblesexual, apparently), along with its 1,100 square foot roof terrace.

But there's a catch: The broker, Adam, tells Freddie that the seller wants $17.5 million, and that he wants to be part of Fredrik's team. They agree to $16.5 million, and Fredrik says he'll consider adding Adam to his team. (Spoiler: The apartment was pricechopped a couple of times, and is now listed with Corcoran.)

Alas—womp womp—Rebel decides it's too big and too rich for her blood, and they move on. Specifically, they move on to another 443 Greenwich apartment; after an argument with the seller's listing agent (over the storage space and getting a quick close; it's dramatic, but only if you're a real estate nerd, honestly), the deal is done, and Rebel Wilson has her New York City apartment. Good job, Fredrik.

Steve

It's difficult to know where Steve's story arc will go this season, and if the dissolution of Town's residential real estate arm (where he was a broker; he's since moved to Corcoran) will factor in at all. But for now, he's still doing his thing, which translated into—in his words—$250 million in volume in the past year. His goal is to double those numbers, "this year and every year," and he now has a team of four to help him accomplish that.

The listing Steve's working on this week is at Nolita's Brewster Carriage House—once home to John Legend and Chrissy Teigen—and we're once again treated to a definition of Nolita as one of the city's hottest neighborhoods, which, in the MDLNY universe, has been true for at least three seasons. The potential client is Steve's ex-girlfriend Manuela, and even though "she broke my heart," according to Steve, he's open to selling her place. "Is this something i should be doing?" he asks. (If you have to ask.…)

Town Residential

Manuela's very … brown … apartment in the Brewster Carriage House.

Manuela's apartment is not ideal; it's a one-bedroom, it's not staged, and it's painted a somewhat drab brown color. But she wants to net $5 million for the place, or maybe $4.5 million. Steve isn't optimistic, but somehow agrees to try for $3.9 million and to not bug her about repainting the place, at least at first.

The next-door unit is also about to hit the market, and it's everything's Manuela's isn't—bright, airy, spruced up and staged, not so full of personality, and better served for a family. Steve is selling himself as the perfect broker to the seller's agent, and to be fair, he does have a leg up on the competition. "I know this building better than any broker," Steve says, and since he apparently lived here for a spell, he's probably not wrong. He proposes selling the place for $5 million, and the seller's rep isn't having it.

Steve pitches something radical: selling it as a combo unit with his ex's apartment, which could then garner upwards of $9 million. The seller's rep is on board; now, he just needs to convince Manuela.

And that's it! Check in throughout the season for more recaps.