Unless you are Josh Altman of Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles, it normally takes time and patience to accumulate a $30 million financial net worth. Altman not only built his empire in a decade, but he also did so right after going bankrupt. (1)
Josh Altman could be the most significant celebrity and top agent in the modern age of real estate. With a widely known reality TV show, “Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles,” he has supplemented his natural ability to flip and sell houses. Every year, the brokerage firm he co-owns with his brother gets to sell more than $100 million in real estate.
Josh Altman’s Early Life
Josh Altman was born in Newton, Massachusetts, on March 10, 1979. Altman was raised into a Jewish family and had his Bar Mitzvah in both the United States and Israel. He is also the youngest of Alan and Judith Altman’s two children. Altman’s father, Alan Altman, is a stockholder and works for the successful law firm Greenberg Traurig. Matt Altman, Josh’s older brother, worked as a talent scout. Matt Altman currently works in real estate and is Josh’s business partner today.
He went to New York City after finishing high school at Newton South High School in 1997 to attend Syracuse University, at which he received a degree in Speech Communications (in 2001), all while participating on the school’s football team as the kicker. Josh moved to Los Angeles after graduating from Syracuse, from which he began his real estate career by selling houses.
Rags to riches
One of the most important personal financial lessons Josh Altman has had to come out of the 2007/2008 financial crisis was to live within your means. He discussed how everything goes down so rapidly on the So Money podcast. Josh and Matt Altman pooled their resources of $10,000 to procure a $400,000 home with 100 percent financing. They decided to flip it and managed to make $200,000, and yet they kept reinvesting their revenues to flip bigger and much more lavish residences. The issue was that they could no longer afford the houses.
History serves as a sobering lesson as to how this economic cycle unfolds, and Altman’s tale is far from rare. His tale of “rags to riches to rags” is a personal financial teaching moment. He has been earning more profit than ever before, and at the age of 26, he became a billionaire. But as quickly as his bank account increased, he wasted it. He lost everything when the market plummeted.
Shortly after the turn of the century, he and his brother rose through the ranks in the real estate game. The brothers began by flipping houses using the 100 percent financing concept. They sought more as they rapidly flipped and marketed more residences. The brothers managed to enter the mortgage market by establishing their own company and staffing it with friends. The group gradually began to emerge from its financial abyss.
Josh Altman’s Net Worth
Josh Altman went to Los Angeles in 2004 and started his own independent real estate finance firm, which he operated for three years. He liquidated the firm near the end of the decade and then partnered with his brother Matt Altman at the Hilton and Hyland real estate brokerage to establish “The Altman Brothers.” In their real estate projects, the Altman brothers started handling celebrities, athletes, as well as media professionals.
The house of Norm Zada, which was featured in the Perfect 10 magazine and was the sixth-highest sale in LA history, was one of his most well-known sales as his numbers increased. The firm focuses on selling residences in Bel Air, Holmby Hills, and Beverly Hills, also known as the “platinum triangle.” He and his brother generated nearly $200 million in real estate while running The Altman Brothers real estate brokerage. (2)
Josh Altman began appearing on television around this time and became a TV reality star on the “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” series, which garnered him some media exposure. Since then, he has collaborated with famous celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Kanye West several times since his debut on the series. He then continues to be featured in journals and media outlets for his work, such as “Watch What Happens Live,” “Today,” and “Good Morning America.” Josh has also worked as a consultant for publications such as The Wall Street Journal and Boston Herald and has hosted and spoken at a number of events. Today, Josh Altman’s net worth is $30 million.
Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles
Josh has become a co-star on the famous BravoTV show “Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles” with Madison Hildebrand and Josh Flagg since the summer of 2011. The show follows the lives of real estate agents as they sell high-end, expensive residences to celebrities as well as other notable figures.
But Josh Altman soon realized that he seemed to have a flair for television as well. He has been on “Hollywood Today Live,” “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” “FabLife,” “The Real,” and “Money with Melissa Francis,” among other shows. All of this helped him become well-known even beyond his Southern California power base.
Personal Life
When Altman announced his engagement to Heather Bilyeu, his Million Dollar Listing co-star, in 2013, his personal life intersected with his professional life in an unusual way. The couple postponed their nuptials but were able to work things out and now have two kids, Alexis and Ace, who were born in 2017 and 2019. (3)
Josh Altman reportedly advertised his own property in Hollywood Hills for $8 million in 2017 after purchasing it for just over $2.5 million in 2014 and reportedly leasing it out for $38,000 per month.
Matthew Perry and Jennifer Aniston were among Altman’s neighbors, and during that time, the star agent also tried his hand at producing books with big titles, such as “It is Your Move: My Million Dollar Method for Taking Risks with Confidence and Succeeding at Work and Life.”
His practice of mingling with famous celebrities appears to have paid off, as he now has a large network of acquaintances to call on for assistance in his future endeavors, which will undoubtedly include plenty of high-end luxury properties as well as his unique flair for the extraordinary.
References
- Dan Bova, He Went From Being Broke to Selling More Than $1 Million a Day in Real Estate, https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/302039
- Dan Schawbel, The Altman Brothers: How They Sold $200 Million In Real Estate, https://www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2013/08/06/the-altman-brothers-how-they-sold-200-million-in-real-estate
- Mackenzie Schmidt, PHOTOS: Every Gorgeous Detail of MDLLA’s Josh Altman and Heather Bilyeu’s Aspen Wedding, https://people.com/home/million-dollar-listing-la-josh-altman-heather-bilyeu-aspen-wedding/