Million Dollar Listing New York S4E07: International Interest

It's Season 4 of Million Dollar Listing New York, where three brokers, Fredrik Eklund, Luis Ortiz, and Ryan Serhant, show the world what it takes to sell high-priced New York City apartments. Check in each week for recaps by Angela Bunt. Episode air date: 5/27/2015.

Last week's episode left Luis in PR limbo, as he waited for the media's reaction to his Townhouses of Cobble Hill party. Real estate, culture, and lifestyle bloggers were all invited to the soirée, where—through food, booze, and powerpoint slides—Luis tried to inspire them to write about the property in a positive light. This week, the reviews are in and the party was a success: the townhouse is all over the Internet, as well as articles about the hip neighborhood of Cobble Hill. Time to take the publicity to the next level and tweet 'dat sh*t. Or whatever it is the kids are doing these days. Keep the press coming!

There's no stopping The Serhant, who has sold all but one unit of Yvonne's development at 554 East 82nd Street. OK, technically R.D. sold the maisonette while pretending to be Ryan, but we'll still count it. The only apartment left to sell is the upper duplex, and he has some very interested buyers. Meet Mr. and Mrs. Pardalis, a young Greek family who are super into the sun-filled open layout, laundry room, and new appliances of the duplex. (Don't forget about the carrara marble!) Ryan tries to make a Greek connection with them by mentioning Emilia, but will it be enough to sell the apartment?

In sticking with our international theme, Fredrik and Derek our on a romantic getaway in Stolkholm. And by "romantic getaway" we mean Freddy is working while Derek walks around art museums alone. Apparently when Freddy's not trying to steal eggs from his coworker's girlfriend's ovaries, he's running multi-million dollar real estate companies overseas. Who knew? He visits the offices of Eklund Stolkholm New York, a business that specializes in high-end, luxury properties, to discuss his latest project. (And to also walk around and say over and over again in Swedish: "It feels good to be home!") The vacation home in question is located in the ski resort town of Åre, Sweden, and is 3,000 square feet, housing seven bedrooms and four bathrooms, all made with locally sourced lumber. With a sauna, heated floors and beautiful open-concept layout, this house is going to cost a pretty penny: $11.7 Swedish krona to be exact, which translates to $1.4 million.

Gerard Longo's henchwoman, Hotshot Broker Laura, is all smiles when she meets up with Luis in Brooklyn to touch base on the townhouses. His press tactic was a success, and they have several interested international buyers who have requested a showing. The two are quite the team, with Laura playing tough cop and Luis playing the best friend as he chats up buyers en Español. Luis jokes that he and Laura are like Bonnie and Clyde or Thelma and Louis. Err, Thelma and Luis in this case.

Before Freddy and Derek head to Åre to start slinging the ski home, it's family time. Meet Sigge, Malin, and Klas, Fredrik's brother, sister-in-law and father, respectively. It's all smiles as they chat and catch up over wine, and things get especially sappy when Freddy tells them they're trying to have a baby. Fredrik's dad, another successful business man, stresses to Freddy the importance of putting his child and Derek before work. He tells him: "If there's anything I might regret, it's that I didn't spend more time with you when you were small."

Ryan and R.D. are hard at work figuring out logistics for the epic Times Square proposal. Ryan contacts the Times Square Alliance to ask about shutting it down completely in order to pop the question. The girl says it's only been done once, for that awesome scene in Vanilla Sky, and Ryan will have to contact the Mayor's office to get details on this "very, very costly" request. Which reminds me: I need to go watch Vanilla Sky again because that movie rules.

Freddy and his cohorts have arrived in Åre to prepare for the open house later that evening. Before the slew of international clients show up, he has some private showings to take care of. Each Swede who walks through the door is more beautiful than the next, with soft glowing skin not hardened by the pollution and stress of New York City. (Ugh, why do people live here again?) We already know the property is beautiful and the scenery is even more breathtaking, but it's still not enough to convince buyers that the house is worth the record-breaking amount of $1.4 million (don't these people know this would be a steal in New York?). Fredrik must utilize the location—"You have to ski in and ski out!"—to illustrate the true real estate value. Anybody up for a dog-sledding date?

Ryan and Yvonne meet for a cocktail and to discuss progress on 554 East 82nd Street. He butters her up with three full-ask offers on the maisonette and two middle units, and then tells her about a current offer on the upper duplex. It's listed at $4.75 million—a high but fare number for the neighborhood—but the buyer's have offered $4.5 million. Typical ball-busting Yvonne says stone-faced, "you need to call them back and get them to come up to full-ask." When Ryan comes back to the table with a new offer that's $25,000 higher, Yvonne feigns anger before caving: "No, I'm just kidding. I think that's a great offer. I would've actually taken the $4.5 but I just wanted to see how good you were," and then giggles. "I think Yvonne is my favorite developer ever," says Ryan, and we have to agree. Cheers to another sold out building on the Upper East Side!

Luis has received an offer on the Cobble Hill townhouse, coming in just under full-ask at $3.75 million. He meets with Gerard to tell him the good news. Not one to mince words—remember that "mental masturbation" line last week?—Gerard delivers some... not-as-good news. "As you know my team was working in tandem with you, and we've received a full-ask offer on the townhouse that we're going to execute." Ouch. He tells Luis that his hard work didn't go unnoticed, and he'll still get his share of commission as well as the possibility of working with him on future projects. As Luis says, it wasn't a slam dunk, but it was a win. And at least now he won't have to keep coming back to Brooklyn everyday. Yuck, so far away!

Somewhere between a failed backyard Harlem BBQ and the loss of the Cobble Hill townhouse, Luis and Ronita decided it was time to hire additional staff. (Man, if you think normal job interviews are nerve-wracking, imagine adding a camera into the mix.) The candidates are promising, but will they be able to run sh*t the way Ronita does when Luis isn't around? Only time will tell.

Freddy's open house is poppin' off, filled with rich Europeans whose quality of life is way higher than ours will ever be. Derek watches him in action as he schmoozes guests and pitches the property. While he's a bit antsy about making a sale, he's even more nervous about the arrival of his bestie, Anna. He's asked her to be his egg donor once and she declined, but he's hoping for a change of heart and is going to ask her again tonight. At the party. God, could you make this whole thing anymore awkward, Freddy?! She shows up, but with a bald-headed boyfriend in tow. (Definitely don't want those genes!) Uh oh! Is her new relationship going to affect her decision to donate? We'll have to wait until next week to find out. Let's just get to this freakin' Ryan and Emilia proposal already!

Somehow, someway, Ryan has afforded to empty out Times Square (aka Bravo paid for it), and he's getting ready to pop the question to Emilia. As soon as she steps out of their car and sees the post-apocalyptic epicenter, she looks panic-stricken and keeps saying, "What's going on? What's happening? What are you doing?!" If I didn't know any better, I'd think that she wasn't very excited. They saunter up to a string quartet, and Emilia bursts into tears as she sees "I Love You Puffer Munkin" written out in Greek on the jumbotron. (Awww, puffer munkin!) Ryan tells her "I wake up every single morning for you, and go to bed every single night for you," and then gets down on one knee and pops the question. Through tears and smudged eye makeup, she says yes.

Oh God, now I'm crying. Until next time...
· Million Dollar Listing New York [Bravo]
· All Million Dollar Listing coverage [Curbed]