A $1,200 lease commission turned into $175 million in sales for Josh Altman.
That was one of several stories the Million Dollar Listing LA star shared at AREC 2026 on the Gold Coast, each one landing the same point: the deals that build careers rarely look like much when they walk through the door.
Altman spent two months showing a young woman $4,500-a-month rentals in West Hollywood.
The commission barely covered his petrol. But that night, she called her father on the East Coast. He happened to be sitting with the CEO of a Fortune 500 company who needed to sell a penthouse in Santa Monica.
The penthouse listed at $4.5 million. While sitting open houses for it, another buyer walked in looking for something similar.
Altman spent the next hour calling every agent in LA until he found an unlisted 8,000-square-foot penthouse nearby. That sale broke the record for the most expensive condo ever sold in Santa Monica at the time – $12 million.
“Treat everyone you meet with respect,” Josh said.
“You never know where your next deal is going to come from.”
It’s a principle he said he learned the hard way.
Altman told the crowd he became a millionaire by 26, flipping houses in Los Angeles with his brother Matt after starting with $10,000 in savings and a pair of rollerblades. Then 2008 hit. They’d just sunk every dollar into a castle in the Hollywood Hills – two weeks before the market collapsed.
The castle sold for $1.9 million, wiping out the $1.1 million they’d put down. What followed was a year of depression, failed side hustles (including a Valentine’s Day rose business that lost $25,000), and serious conversations about leaving the industry altogether.
A mentor pulled him out of it with simple advice: stop chasing money and find what you actually love doing.
“You find out what you love to do in life and you’re going to be successful,” Josh said.
“It’s not all about money, first of all. Real happiness is success.”
What Altman loved, it turned out, was walking through the mansions in Beverly Hills every Sunday.
So he got his licence and talked his way into Hilton & Hyland – Rick Hilton’s agency – despite having no sales experience.
His logic was straightforward: “I’d rather be the worst real estate agent in the best brokerage as opposed to the best real estate agent in the worst brokerage.”
He sold nothing for six months. Then one house. Then $12 million in his second year, $30 million the next, and eventually $1.5 billion a year, averaged over the past five years.
The stories Altman shared weren’t about luck, though.
They were about positioning. His most famous deal – an $11.4 million double-ended sale – started because he tapped Tyler Perry on the shoulder at the gym at 6:40 am.
His Starbucks story makes the same point.
He deliberately set up his laptop at a cafe across the street from Beverly Hills talent agencies, MLS sheets on the table, Wall Street Journal open to the mansion section.
When an NBA All-Star walked in, Altman was in line behind him within seconds. That day, the player bought an $18 million compound that had only been listed for two hours.
“Choose to be lucky,” Josh said.
“Put yourself in situations where you’re rubbing shoulders with the type of clientele that you want to sell to.”
For the 4,500 agents in the room, the maths was clear. Altman didn’t build a billion-dollar business by waiting for leads. He built it by being in the right rooms, treating every client – from a $4,500 renter to a billionaire – with the same energy, and taking the shot before he felt ready.
“Ready, fire, aim,” he said.
“Don’t spend your whole life waiting for the perfect shot.”
Your Tuesday morning to-do list
- Pick your “Starbucks” – identify the one cafe, gym, or co-working space where your target clientele already spends time. Block 90 minutes this week to work from there with your laptop open to listings.
- Call the top-performing agent in your office and ask for their worst open house – the one that’s been sitting for months that nobody wants to host. Volunteer to sit in every weekend for the next month.
- Review your last 10 closed deals and trace each one back to the original introduction. Write down who referred whom. You’ll see a pattern – and probably one or two people you haven’t thanked properly.
- Audit your phone – scroll through your last 20 conversations with potential clients. How many ended with you getting their number versus leaving it to them to follow up? For anywhere you left the ball in their court, send a text today.
- Think about your brokerage honestly. Are you surrounded by agents who are better than you and pushing you to improve, or are you the big fish in a small pond? If it’s the latter, that conversation is worth having this week.