- Fredrik Eklund and John Gomes joined forces in 2005 and now run a team of about 100 real-estate agents.
- The team works from NYC to Miami and averaged $4 billion in annual sales over the last four years.
- Eklund and Gomes reflected on the power of social media in real estate and the next hot luxury market.
This is an as-told-to essay based on a conversation with luxury real-estate agents Fredrik Eklund and John Gomes, who joined forces in 2005 and shot to fame on Bravo’s reality show, “Million Dollar Listing: New York.”
Twenty years later, they oversee a team of about 100 agents at Douglas Elliman with Eklund Gomes team CEO Julia Spillman. The team recorded $3.77 billion in sales across New York, California, Florida, and Texas in 2023, the most recent year data is available. Notable past clients include “Sex and the City” actress Sarah Jessica Parker and Hollywood power couple Chrissy Teigen and John Legend.
The conversation with Eklund and Gomes has been edited for length and clarity.
John Gomes: We really are the yin and the yang. There are things that he’s really good at that I’m just really bad at, and vice versa. Sometimes I get in my own head and think too much; Fredrik is a doer.
Fredrik Eklund: I want everybody to be on my wavelength. When I get too intense, John can call me out.
Gomes: Early on, before we started, Fredrik would say, “Real estate can be a lonely business. Why don’t we do it together?” We get in ruts, and if you don’t have someone to help you out, well, then you become a has-been. There are many of them in this industry.
Gomes: I didn’t even realize I was in a slump. A couple of months ago, Julia and Fredrik held basically, like, a crisis meeting. They’re like, “John, we don’t know what’s going on. You don’t seem like yourself.” That heart-to-heart meant everything. It turned me around completely.
Eklund: The biggest fight we’ve ever had was when I felt like there wasn’t enough in his calendar. In retaliation, he completely removed his calendar so I didn’t have visibility anymore.
Gomes: I’ve never liked the idea of having to put every little thing on my calendar. I don’t put everything in it, yet somehow I’m busy all day. We had a come-to-Jesus moment and Fredrik eventually said, “Okay, I’m going to release you from the calendar.” We had to compromise.
A giant social media platform comes with great power — and great anxiety
Eklund: Social media grew organically over the last 15 years, and it has become really important to the real-estate business. I remember when we first hired an in-house graphic designer, which gave us an opportunity to look different from other teams on social media. That became a powerful moment — when you could post photos of a listing and 100 agents would spread it across the world at the same time.
Eklund: Social media gives me anxiety, to be honest with you. I’m not one of those people who love it. When you have millions of followers, there’s pressure to post more and more. Looking into the future, I think it’s about becoming more authentic — showing more vulnerability — and less bragging. I feel like that was also the case with reality TV back in the day.
Eklund: I don’t want to sound negative, because social media does bring us great success. How else do you get 500,000 or 1 million views on something for free? Globally and instantly, too. But when you have a team of 100 agents and 25 developers, it’s hard. How do you keep your social media authentic?
They stay on top of luxury tastes and predict Nashville is the next hot spot
Eklund: I’m from Sweden. I worked in Singapore and Tokyo. I’ve lived in London in addition to New York. I feel like the world is a smorgasbord, as we say in Swedish. There are so many sandwiches I want to taste, and I don’t have enough time.
Gomes: During COVID, Florida went gangbusters and New York slowed down entirely. So if we were only in New York, we would have gone bust, but we were able to hedge. We boomed in Florida, and then that slowed down. It’s always the hottest in one market, but that market is not always the hottest, right?
Eklund: Nashville is definitely a luxury market on the rise. I’m studying right now to get my license in Tennessee, as we’re seeing a lot of activity down there.
Gomes: Typical buyers are coming from LA. They might have ties to the music industry.
Eklund: Or they’re New Yorkers relocating to Tennessee for tax reasons. Not everybody leaving New York wants Miami. Nashville has a real energy around it.
Advice for young brokers: Don’t expect success right away
Gomes: Twenty years ago, when we began this whole thing, I never in my wildest imagination thought we’d be here. I never imagined we’d have 100 people who work with us in five different states.
Gomes: All I did was just work every day. Fredrik and I motivated each other. We were hungry, one day at time. One day, we woke up to find we were 38 on the Real Deal’s list of top brokers in NYC and thought we were the best thing since sliced bread. It made us more hungry — we wanted to be No. 1. (Editor’s note: The Eklund-Gomes team reached No. 1 on Real Deal’s most list of top residential brokers in New York City. It most recently ranked third, with $260 million in NYC sales in 2023.)
Gomes: Unfortunately, so many agents look at the leaders of the industry and they want that success right away. They want to do it fast. I think social media hurt young agents in many ways, because they think everything is supposed to happen super quickly. That was never our plan — the business evolved organically.
Eklund: Find a group of people that you have fun with. Find a group of people who you are allowed to criticize and who criticize you and who grow with you. It’s very much like a family or a marriage.
Gomes: Don’t think too much about the future. Don’t lean into fears. Rather, allow it to propel you to success. It will take you very far.
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