1367: How to Sell $1 Billion in NYC Real Estate with Ian Slater

Ian Slater moved to New York at 22 with an Ivy League degree, zero network, and no idea what a residential broker actually did. Thirteen years later, he’s sold more than $1 billion of real estate and leads Trove Partners, one of the top-producing teams in New York City. In this episode, you’ll discover how a college swimmer who studied Arabic and international relations “fell backwards” into an internship, why being social got him further than anything he learned at Brown, and how a blizzard showing with a construction-company owner turned into the $7 million deal that convinced him to stay in the business. Ian breaks down the numbers behind his team—78 transactions last year at roughly a $4 million average—and explains how you build a pipeline in a city where you can’t door-knock, can’t drive the street, and can’t see who owns what. You’ll hear why he tells agents to put themselves in rooms with people who own $10 million apartments instead of $1 million ones, the single-building quarterly report he uses to win off-market listings, and why he personally shows every apartment even as a team leader. Ian also shares the two things he wishes he’d known on day one: stop ignoring the network already sitting in front of you, and lose the chip on your shoulder long enough to learn from the brokers who’ve done thousands of deals. We wrap with a look at how Ian runs his inbox, proposals, comp reports, and board packages with AI. Are you ready to sell bigger, think longer-term, and build a business that compounds?

Listen to today’s show and learn:

Introduction to Ian Slater [00:00]
From Brown Swimmer to Accidental Intern [01:31]
Training Wheels: The Post-2013 NYC Boom [12:02]
What Ian Wishes He Knew Starting Out [17:08]
Turning Youth Into an Advantage [22:43]
Inside Trove: 78 Deals at a $4M Average [26:50]
Getting Leads in a City You Can’t Door-Knock [30:11]
Owning a Building and Always Showing Up [34:04]
Running a Luxury Team With AI [38:50]
Plus so much more!

Ian Slater

Ian Slater is a Licensed Associate Real Estate Broker and the Founder and Partner of Trove Partners, a New York City real estate advisory team affiliated with Compass. A real estate advisor since 2013, Ian has sold in excess of $1 billion of real estate across hundreds of transactions in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Hamptons, with deep experience in condominiums, cooperatives, townhouses, rentals, new construction, and off-market deals.

Originally the founder of the Slater Team at Compass, Ian co-founded Trove Partners in 2024 with his business partner Michael Koeneke. The team has grown from two people to 13 and was ranked by RealTrends as the No. 2 team in New York by volume, with $352 million in sales across 78 transaction sides at an average price of about $4.5 million. Notable deals include a $112.5 million Southampton estate, two $29 million Manhattan townhouse sales, and the $140 million sellout of 570 Broome Street.

Ian takes a data-driven, advisory approach to sales and rentals that has produced building records in multiple condominiums and co-ops across Manhattan and earned a loyal client base of CEOs, entrepreneurs, celebrities, and investors. He is frequently quoted on the market in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Bloomberg, and The Real Deal, and is himself a multifamily investor.

A resident of Greenwich Village and Bellport, Ian studied international relations at Brown University, where he was captain of the varsity swim team.

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-Aaron Amuchastegui