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Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →Serhant, the New York brokerage founded by the broker and television personality Ryan Serhant, opened in Illinois on Tuesday 6 October 2026, the trade publication Inman reported on 8 October. The new operation covers Chicago and the North Shore suburbs and starts with more than 40 agents, according to the company. On the same Tuesday, the luxury brokerage The Agency announced an office in Vail, Colorado, its seventh in that state.
Neither move is an acquisition. Both are a brokerage planting its name in a new place by recruiting people who already work there, and both rest, for now, on what the two companies say about themselves. This article reports those statements as the press relayed them and says each time whose figure it is.
Company figures, as reported by Inman on 8 October 2026 and HousingWire on 6 October 2026. None has been independently audited.
What Serhant announced in Illinois
The brokerage, which styles its name in capital letters followed by a full stop, calls the new business Serhant Illinois. Inman describes Illinois as the firm's 20th state. The Chicago Sun-Times, which covered the announcement on 6 October, also says the firm is now active in 20 states; the mortgage and housing trade publication HousingWire, in its report of the same day, speaks of 20 markets. The three reports agree on the number and differ only on the word.
The launch group counts more than 40 agents, a figure all three outlets attribute to the company. HousingWire adds that the firm expects more agents to join in the coming weeks and months, and the Sun-Times reports that the office plans to grow its Chicago team.
Related readSingapore's five largest property agencies, read from public recordsOn premises, the reports are less tidy. Inman writes that the firm opened its Illinois office on 6 October. The Sun-Times is more specific: the brokerage plans an office in the North Shore area and is working for now from temporary space in Wicker Park. No opening date for a permanent office appears in any of the three reports.
Who leads the office and who joined
The Illinois business is run by Dina Lissner, with the title of managing director. Inman and HousingWire both report that she spent five years as designated managing broker of the Highland Park office of Baird & Warner. HousingWire adds two details: she worked as an agent for four years before moving into management, and the North Shore-Barrington Association of Realtors named her its managing broker of the year for 2024.
Lissner is quoted by the Sun-Times and HousingWire praising the quality of agents in Chicago and on the North Shore, and saying that what Serhant brings them is technology, media and a brand.
The company presents four founding agents, in three teams. Two of the three teams come from Jameson Sotheby's International Realty and one from @properties Christie's International Real Estate, according to Inman.
| Founding agent | Previous brokerage | Career sales claimed |
|---|---|---|
| Agent leading the first team | @properties Christie's International Real Estate | More than US$650 million |
| Lead of the Home Discovery Team | Jameson Sotheby's International Realty | More than US$1 billion, for the team |
| First co-lead of the third team | Jameson Sotheby's International Realty | More than US$250 million |
| Second co-lead of the third team | Jameson Sotheby's International Realty | US$130 million |
Source: Inman, 8 October 2026, and HousingWire, 6 October 2026, relaying the company.
Inman gives the size of each team. The agent from @properties Christie's International Real Estate arrives with five team members. The lead of the Home Discovery Team brings a team of five, one of them its director of operations. The two agents who lead the third team jointly bring three colleagues. HousingWire reports that the first of the four has spent nearly two decades in the business, and the two co-leads 13 years and eight years.
Related readWhat Singapore property agencies may not do with clients' moneyThe lead of the Home Discovery Team explained the move in terms of momentum. She told Inman that after 37 years in the trade she can tell a brokerage that is maintaining its position from one that is building, and that she counts her new firm among the builders.
Beyond the founding teams, Inman and HousingWire list 17 more agents joining at launch. Inman says they come from @properties, Sotheby's International Realty, Baird & Warner, Compass, Real and Keller Williams, with three from Compass and one each from Real and Keller Williams.
The sales figures are the company's own
The headline number of the launch is that the group closed more than US$600 million in sales over the past 12 months. Inman attributes it to the company. HousingWire describes it as trailing 12-month sales volume, again per the company, and Chicago Agent Magazine, in a summary reproduced on Serhant's own press page, words it as sales the agents represented over the last year.
The individual figures have the same origin. Inman reports that the sales of the agent from @properties Christie's International Real Estate reached US$66 million in the past 12 months and that the Home Discovery Team sells more than US$60 million a year. Set against the group figure of more than US$600 million, those two teams together come to about US$126 million, roughly a fifth of it, which means most of the claimed volume sits with the other recruits, whose individual numbers the reports do not give.
Launch-day sales volumes are statements, not audited results
Every sales figure in the Illinois announcement comes from the brokerage and was relayed by the press. Career sales and trailing volume describe business the agents did at their previous firms. They say what the recruits have done, not what the new office has sold.
HousingWire describes founding agents as "RealTrends Verified". The report does not say what volume was verified for each of them, or for which year.
Related readHow a South Australian land agent must hold and audit client moneySerhant's press page, read on 10 October, carries no release of its own on the Illinois launch. It lists four items of press coverage, all dated 6 October. The Sun-Times attributes Ryan Serhant's remarks to a news release.
A brokerage founded in 2020, now in 20 states
The company is young. Ryan Serhant launched it in 2020, the Sun-Times and HousingWire both report, and it first expanded outside New York in 2023. HousingWire puts its size today at nearly 2,500 agents, a figure it attributes to the firm.
Illinois is the fifth state the reports list for 2026. According to HousingWire, the brokerage entered Massachusetts, Texas, California and Colorado earlier in 2026; the Sun-Times lists the same four alongside Illinois. Neither report gives the dates of those openings.
The founder is better known than his firm. The Sun-Times recalls that he came to public attention on the Bravo series "Million Dollar Listing: New York", which he left after nine seasons, and that he later starred in and produced the Netflix series "Owning Manhattan". The paper reports that the firm claims more than 11 million followers on social media and calls itself the most followed real estate brand in the world.
The second pillar of the pitch is software. In 2024, the Sun-Times reports, the company launched an in-house artificial intelligence platform that gives its agents tools for lead generation, marketing and transaction management. HousingWire says a second version has since been introduced, without giving a date, and reports Ryan Serhant, the founder and chief executive, as saying that the technology was a large part of the firm's appeal to Chicago agents.
Related readTexas broker responsibility: what TREC rule 535.2 asks of a brokerageThe Sun-Times describes the firm as known for luxury listings and for marketing and selling new construction. It cites two current listings as a measure of the top of its range: an oceanfront estate in Palm Beach, Florida, asking US$185 million, and a newly built townhouse in Manhattan asking US$52 million.
The Chicago market Serhant walks into
Ryan Serhant's own description of the city, in a news release quoted by the Sun-Times, is that real estate in Chicago has been run the same way for a long time and that its agents are ready for something different. The Sun-Times sets that claim against a local trade that has in fact been changing fast, through mergers as much as through newcomers.
The paper recalls two deals. In December 2024, @properties Christie's International Real Estate, the Chicago-based brokerage, was acquired by Compass. In 2025, Baird & Warner acquired Dream Town, and the combined firm became the region's second-largest brokerage by 2024 sales volume, according to the Sun-Times.
Those two deals touch the very firms Serhant recruited from. One founding team comes from @properties Christie's International Real Estate. The managing director comes from Baird & Warner. Three of the other launch agents come from Compass. The reports do not say whether the mergers played a part in any individual decision to move.
For agents in Illinois, the practical point is narrow. A new national brand is hiring in Chicago and on the North Shore, it is led locally by a former managing broker from a competitor, and it says it will keep recruiting.
Related readTexas and California: what an unlicensed brokerage assistant may doThe Agency opens a seventh Colorado office in Vail
The second announcement of 6 October concerns a mountain resort rather than a metropolis. The Agency published a post on its blog that day under the headline "Mountain Milestone: The Agency Debuts New Office in Vail, Colorado". Inman's roundup of 8 October gives the substance.
The Vail office is led by Adi Slifer as managing partner and Jason Cole as managing director. Both names carry weight locally, on Inman's account. Slifer is a Vail native and the daughter of a former mayor of the town. Cole moved to the Vail Valley in 2005 and later served as chief executive of Slifer Smith & Frampton Real Estate. In a statement relayed by Inman, Slifer said that Vail has always been home.
Vail is The Agency's seventh office in Colorado, after Aspen, Boulder, Denver, Grand Junction, Steamboat Springs and Telluride, Inman reports. The company says it opened 27 offices in 2025 and now has more than 190 offices in 17 countries, figures Inman attributes to The Agency.
The two announcements show two versions of the same method. Serhant enters a state with a large group assembled from several competitors at once, and Colorado is among the states it also entered in 2026. The Agency adds one office at a time to a state where it already has six, and puts people with long local histories in charge.
What has not been said yet
Several things a reader would want to know are absent from the reports published so far.
- Premises in Illinois. The Sun-Times reports temporary space in Wicker Park and a plan for a North Shore-area office, with no date.
- Headcount targets. Serhant says more agents will join; no number is given.
- Verified volume. The figure of more than US$600 million is the company's, for business done before the launch.
- Size of the Vail office. Inman names its two leaders and gives no agent count.
- Terms. None of the reports describes the commission splits or other terms offered to recruits by either company.
The next dated information is likely to come from the companies themselves, as they announce further recruits in Illinois and name the agents working from Vail.
Kooky, from Shaka
Kooky edits Agents Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for real estate professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.
