Kendra Sells Hollywood, the real-estate actuality collection, returns for season two Friday on Max, and there’s a brand new castmember becoming a member of the ranks of the present.
Ranked within the high 3 % of brokers nationwide, Douglas Elliman’s McKenzie Ryan is the newest addition to the collection, which follows former The Ladies Subsequent Door star Kendra Wilkinson as she builds a profession in actual property.
Ryan has been primarily based for years in New York — the place she’s at the moment itemizing a Neo-Georgian-style townhouse on East sixty fourth Road for $18 million — however is now going bicoastal. On the present, she is seen making her personal foray into the equally hyper-competitive world of luxurious Los Angeles actual property.
“I play an unimaginable position on the present as this powerhouse New York dealer,” Ryan tells The Hollywood Reporter. “This present actually happened as a result of I’ve been so profitable in New York and I’m now increasing into different markets, Beverly Hills being considered one of them. I’m going out [to L.A.] and present what I’m manufactured from and produce my New York power and my expertise to Beverly Hills. You see my interplay with all these L.A. brokers who’ve by no means met me earlier than and are sort of bracing for this new stage of competitors that I carry to Beverly Hills and to our Elliman workplace. We love a bit competitors round right here.”
Ryan, who leads a staff of 5 brokers at Douglas Elliman, is aware of what it’s wish to compete below stress and with an viewers. Named by THR as considered one of New York Metropolis’s rising stars in actual property in 2022, she’s a former ballerina and aggressive rhythmic gymnast.
McKenzie Ryan as seen on season two of ‘Kendra Sells Hollywood.’
Courtesy of MAX
“Previous to promoting actual property, which I began after I was 15, I educated for the Olympics as a rhythmic gymnast and competed everywhere in the nation and internationally,” says Ryan. “So competitors and efficiency is in my DNA and it’s one of many elements that basically set me up for an extremely profitable actual property profession. There’s nothing I like greater than performing and profitable as a lot as potential.”
McKenzie Ryan’s upcoming $18 million itemizing of a townhouse in Manhattan on East sixty fourth Road.
Courtesy of McKenzie Ryan/Douglas Elliman
Nevertheless, as Ryan pertains to THR, she discovered success after a childhood in New York the place she had experiences that made her really feel like an outsider. “Lots of people don’t learn about my background and my previous and what it’s taken me to get right here. So within the present, I get to speak about that. I’m the youngest of three children. My mother is Jewish and white and my dad is African-American and Scottish, and my siblings are each white with blond hair and blue eyes and inexperienced eyes. I actually grew up feeling like an outsider in my world and within the panorama of New York Metropolis. At school, individuals all the time thought I used to be adopted and I by no means slot in anyplace.”
Ryan says she’s been capable of channel that “ache of being excluded and being made enjoyable of and switch it into an unimaginable energy. It has propelled me ahead. I nonetheless really feel like an outsider throughout the context of me going out to L.A. to increase my enterprise,” she provides.
Brokers of colour can face quite a few challenges within the real-estate world, as explored in a current New York Occasions article which detailed incidents of discriminatory habits in an business the place solely 6 % of actual property brokers are Black and through which white counterparts earn incomes which are virtually 3 times greater.
Douglas Elliman’s McKenzie Ryan, a former classical ballerina, performs a ballet dance at an open home whereas the opposite brokers watch, as seen on season two of ‘Kendra Sells Hollywood.’
Courtesy of MAX
“We did a panel referred to as Brokers of Colour with Douglas Elliman throughout Black Historical past Month,” says Ryan, “and I spoke very brazenly and eloquently and, you understand, broke down in tears on stage simply speaking about what it’s been wish to make it to this stage the place I’m perhaps considered one of three brokers of colour that sells luxurious actual property in Manhattan and what it’s been wish to be rejected or handed over as a result of individuals suppose I’m maybe inferior or don’t come from that very same world of the kind of patrons they’re hoping to draw. And I spoke candidly about how I’ve needed to struggle my means by all of it and never let something get in my means and maintain my positivity and maintain my religion in myself and in my future robust.”
Ryan is at the moment ranked within the high 1 % of actual property brokers of colour in the US with a social media presence that features 65,000 followers on Instagram. Up subsequent: Ryan, who bought engaged final December, is engaged on a ebook that springs from her curiosity in historic preservation and the historical past of actual property in New York. Says Ryan, “I’m going to be publishing historical past books concerning the Vanderbilts’ and the Astors’ actual property empires within the coming yr.”
Inside McKenzie Ryan’s $18 million townhouse itemizing in New York Metropolis.
Courtesy of McKenzie Ryan/Douglas Elliman
