Exclusive | Ive sold multimillion-dollar apartments for years now I live like the clients I work for, with an art collection worth at least $15M

Perhaps money can buy you class.Fredrik Eklund may have been selling multimillion-dollar listings for 20 years and snapping up fancy homes for himself for 15 years, but it wasn’t until about four years ago that he felt that he had achieved a different level of success. It was then that the former reality television star started collecting blue-chip art including pieces from Jean-Michel Basquiat, Gustav Klimt, Willem de Kooning, Salvador Dalí and Keith Haring.Today his 100-plus-piece collection totals $15 million to $25 million and the paintings grace the walls of Eklund’s homes (he said it was “like putting an animal in a cage” to store art in storage), including his Manhattan lair.“I think as this kid from Sweden, coming here and seeing all these beautiful, very expensive art collections, like 100 times bigger than [mine] — I’ve seen some of the wealthiest people’s homes — I never felt like I could be there, so maybe it was also buying myself a lot of class,” Eklund told The Post during an afternoon interview in his Greenwich Village apartment.“It felt so distant, like the dream was too big or too far away,” he later elaborated.  From that point on, he said, “I just got very smitten.”Collecting art is not that different from selling multimillion-dollar homes.

Both require discretion, illiquid assets and value built on pedigree.The “Million Dollar Listing New York” and “Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles” alum is now comfortable in both spheres.A luxury real estate broker, Eklund and pal John Gomes co-lead the Eklund Gomes Team at Douglas Elliman, which has 100 people in 12 offices in five states.The team has achieved more than $30 billion in sales with a client roster including Jennifer Lopez, Leonardo DiCaprio, Justin Timberlake and Gigi Hadid.“I can finally, hopefully get into the conversation with people, discuss art, which is very important in real estate,” Eklund, 49, said.

“And I understand it.”“The big expe...