Million Dollar Listing

For anyone who was feeling severe withdrawals from not being able to observe pompous real estate agents work their magic, good news – Million Dollar Listing has returned, and it’s in the Big Apple. Following suit with the original LA version, the show follows three highly motivated and/or money-hungry individuals, but instead of Malibu beach houses, they are selling the glorious penthouses and lofts that Manhattan is renowned for.

Fredrik Eklund is Swedish and is also the most aggressive of the three, being nicknamed “The Shark.” Aren’t the Swedes supposed to be neutral? (No, that's the Swiss – Editor). As soon as he appears on-screen, it can clearly be seen how much he loves the camera. Hate to break it to you Fred, but we're not watching this to see your perfectly tanned face – we want to see people go to war over the price of extravagant apartments.

Fredrik is trying to sell an apartment for his client, Jon, at Battery Park City’s The Visionaire. They make an extraordinarily huge deal about a toilet Jon put in the apartment that cost $5500, which is probably supposed to sound impressive but seems idiotic. Fredrik has an open house for the apartment, hires a Swedish chef, and is singing traditional Swede tunes – everything is jolly…but literally two people show up. Out of nowhere, Jon calls him and tells him to take the offer for $400,000 less than the $2.2 million asking price he was insistent on. Which leaves us to wonder, what mysterious force caused him to do so? Did Bravo execs send Andy Cohen to rough him up (Or worse, play ‘Plead the Fifth’)? The world may never know…

Ryan Serhant is a very attractive (Well, they’re all good-looking…but him especially) broker and self-proclaimed womanizer. In one scene, Ryan is on a date with a woman and tells her that getting drunk fast is beneficial to him because he doesn’t have any time to spare. Who said romance was dead? His client is Adrianna, a socialite heiress who is trying to sell her duplex at Trump Place on the Upper West Side, packed to the brim with luxurious possessions she didn’t have to lift a finger for.

The most cringe-worthy moment occurs when Ryan is having lunch with one of his clients, Bonnie, and Fredrik waltzes in and tries to blatantly steal her out from under him. This leads to Ryan letting slip an interesting detail of Fredrik having a past as a gay porn star (So being in front of a camera isn’t unfamiliar to him. Everything makes sense now…), then Fredrik lets her know he did a billion dollars in sales last year in an effort to counter. Sorry, gay porn star wins over inflated earnings.

Lastly there is Michael Lorber, the laid-back newbie. His father is Howard Lorber, the chairman of Elliman (a huge New York real estate firm). He’s never sold an apartment on his own, subways are a foreign concept to him; and this is all fine, because his family is drowning in money. Real Estate will be a nice hobby for him. His father tells him there is a unit left at the Tribeca Summit for him to sell, and that he'll have to split the commission 50/50 if he does so. Michael does get someone to make a $3,000,000 offer, but decides to head to one of his houses in Massachusetts and wait until Monday before calling it in (because real estate is an industry based on waiting to take action). To his chagrin and surprise, an offer has already been made and accepted. Oh well…which house next? Vail? Saint Tropez?