Real Estate Real Laugh has a new episode with one of the most bizarre experiences you could ever imagine in the real estate space! Many investors have different experiences in the real estate space, but Brett Miller's comical real estate story is quite bizarre. Brett had an experience during an open house where he never reconfirmed his client's trip out of town. Surprisingly enough, when he got into the place for the open house, he heard the music playing in the primary suite room. He knocked on the door, but no one answered, so he opened it and never imagined what he had walked into! Tune in to this episode and hear more of Brett's comical real estate story.
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Open House Blunder And Other Crazy Stories With Brett Miller
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Our guest is Brett Miller. Brett is not only one of my good friends but he's almost a younger brother, although we're the same age. Let me tell you something about Brett. When he was new in the business, he called me. He came to work for my company and me. He didn't know anything but the guy became super successful. He's one of the top agents and associates. He is one of the best natural salesmen of all time.
He's got this South African accent so people can't understand him. I can get away with a lot of stuff. One time I was in the car with my wife coming back from Silicon Valley. Brett called me when he was working for me at the time and he starts telling me about what was going on and on. I'm like, “That's great.” We hang up. My wife goes, “Did you understand anything he said?” I said, “No.” The guy’s great, the nicest guy, super quality and an unbelievable salesman. We've had a lot of experiences together.
That might be the nicest you've ever been to me. I like your introduction. Thank you. I appreciate the kind words. Thank you, Bob. It's funny because as you mentioned, I came to work for you. I remember that day I got my license and was working for a family in Beverly Hills doing commercial real estate. I wasn't enjoying it at all because it's not my vibe, all these numbers and the whole way commercial sold.
I remember I picked up a single-family client and was driving in Nichols Canyon. I saw your son and I called on your son. We landed up speaking for 45 minutes on the phone. You asked me where I'm working and I mentioned the family and you are like, “I know that guy. Why are you working there? You've got a good personality. You should come and work for me.” You had a listing on a Tuesday and it's funny, I remember it was $1,000,002 or $1,000,008. I came up and we sat at the open house talking and then I remember signing the document with you and coming to work from you that week.
It does ring a bell. I want to say one thing about Brett too. He is the only person I've ever had who worked for me over the many years in the business that would sit on open houses and sell them. It's so rare. The first deal he did, he sat and opened, I had in Bel-Air for $3.5 million. You sold it to Stallone's sister, right?
Stallone's wife’s sister.
Also, Neal ElAttrache, the big orthopedic. I used some names but it was a great house. He sat and open and suddenly, he was on Easy Street with all this money. He’s a great salesman.
Thank you. For me, that's how I started my career because those open houses were invaluable. Having the ability to have people walk through the door and turn them into clients and some of my best friends. I was a buyer’s agent at your company for over ten years, Bob. I didn't even go for listings. I just worked with buyers.
Open houses were invaluable and could have people walk through the door and turn them into clients; some are best friends.
You've had some killer experiences. Valerie, you got some questions?
During that period, I'm sure you ran into some crazy and odd situations. We run into crazy agents, people, buyers, sellers, people that make up stories and all that stuff. Does anything come to your mind that's amusing?
I had a lot of different things happen. The first one was a listing that I got and the client confirmed that I couldn't do the open house that week that I signed the listing but I could do it the following because he was going out of town. I had a key for the property and I never reconfirmed that he would be out of town. I put out my signs and lock the front door. It was quite a vertical house with three levels. I walk in, I hear a little bit of music and I'm thinking, “Someone might have left a radio on or something.”
I'm turning on the lights. That's the first floor. I went to the second floor. I'm like, “Wait a second.” There's a TV on or there's a radio but no one's meant to be there. I'm a bit confused by it. I go upstairs and the primary suite door is closed but I can hear that's where the music's coming from. I knock on the door and no one answers. I'm like, “No one's here. They must have left the TV on and the radio.” I walk in and there, my client's having sex. I was like, “I thought you were out of town. I'll meet you downstairs.”
You talked to him while he was in the middle of that?
Yes. He looked at me, I looked at him and I'm like, “I thought you were out of town.” I've never been so bad. He looked at me, the girl looked at me with eyes as big as saucers. I go downstairs. I don't know what to do. I'm waiting for them to come down and he sheepishly comes down. He’s like, “Guess where we’re at?” That never happened again. That was a crazy one.
Have you ever had anything weird happen with an animal or somebody's pet or anything at a house that you went through like it was vicious, weird or anything that?
No, but what happened to me was a client said to me, “It's okay. I have two black cats. Just make sure they don't go outside.” I said, “Okay, but I've got to run an open house. As an agent, I have multiple buyers. What do you mean, don't go outside?” She's like, “They shouldn't go outside but please be aware of the exit points.” I'm like, “Okay, no problem.” I walk in and see these two black cats. They go into whatever rooms.
I tell everyone that's walking through the door, “Please be aware. There are two black cats. If you open up a door, please look. Close it immediately.” At the end of the open house, the one black cat comes out and I see it. I'm like, “Wait a second. Why am I seeing the second black cat anywhere?” I spent an hour and a half after this open house looking through every nook and cranny in this house to find this second black hat.
I've never been so scared because the woman was like, these were her children. Finally, I'm texting her, “I hate to tell you this but I've only seen one cat here. I was paying attention. People were told.” She's like, “Go and look. If you go up into my closet, look over there. Look at the left and right.” This other black cat was in the corner behind. It was scary. I thought I lost this woman's cat.
More importantly, the listing could have been lost.
What other funny things have happened?
I want to bring something up. This may be apropos because anybody, whether they're in real estate or not, may have had something similar to this situation. Brett was doing a deal. It was a big deal and we won't go into names. There was some back and forth, it was aggro and he accidentally sent an email that he thought he sent to me to the client.
Let's give the backup on that. It's the 2nd or 3rd deal I've ever done. It was quite a big one. There was a lot of money on the table for me at that time. It was a divorce situation. The husband and wife weren't getting along and there was an item of furniture. The husband didn't care if it went and the wife did care if it had to stay because she said it was a family heirloom. It became this whole back and forth. Somehow, I was representing the buyer and I got looped in with Bob who was representing the family, the listing. Bob was being stern about this and the deal was about to fall apart. I said something in an email, thinking I'm replying to Bob. I landed up sending it to everyone.
I don't want to say what I said. Do you know when you feel your blood drained from your body and you go, “What?” I remember my phone ringing and it's Bob and he goes, “Whatever you do, fix this.” I'm like, “What am I going to do here?” Two seconds later, the wife’s calling me, going, “How dare you do that?” I had to think quickly and long story short, I can't say how I did it but the deal closed. That was a big lesson for me. I've never made that mistake again. Whenever I'm sending something, I always double-check and make sure that I have not responded at all. That was a good lesson early on in my career. That was scary.
Whenever you send an email or something, double-check and ensure you have not sent it to everyone.
I won't put in the address of where I'm sending it until I compose the email. That way, it can't happen. Sometimes you hit the wrong button or something and this thing goes out, you're barbecuing someone. It's brutal.
It's pretty confusing with the way Gmail is. I don't use Gmail because I don't like the way it stacks all the different emails. Do you know what I mean?
Brett used to sit in my open house and worked for me. He wasn't a listing guy. He was a selling broker. He sat in this one house I had listed in Brown. It was a $6 million house and every Sunday, he would get a buyer and sell him something. He had that house in escrow with somebody else and then move out. The funniest story and I use him as an example for people that work for me that sit and open about how that is a good way. If you're a natural, if you're good at bonding the people, you can make money. One time, the way people sit on open houses in the real world and buyers come through and they want to get distanced.
You go to a store and someone says, “Can I help you?” You go, “No,” even though you could probably use help. The classic story of all time is about this woman who comes into the open house and she says, “I've been working with someone for a while. I got to be loyal.” Brett goes, “What about something that's off-market and your agent won't know about it?” What does he do? He leaves the open house, drives around, finds a sign and calls her. It's on the market and sells her house for $5 million.
That was an amazing open for me because I landed up picking up a client who's a famous author, a Spanish writer. He and his wife walked through the door. I ended up becoming pretty good friends with him. I showed them a lot of different properties. They never put pen to paper. They landed up going to England for two years and say, “Thank you for your time. We going to move to London.”
They moved to London, came back and started looking again and it was five years later that I landed up selling them a property in the Palisades, which is the priciest home I've ever sold. That was being a little bit tenacious and again, turning your clients into friends and looking out for their best interests. Five years later, they sold a $14 million home. That was a good open house.
He made a fortune off this one open. Unfortunately for him, it finally sold.
I made a fortune out of selling you properties though too. You taught me how to sell too well.
Funny Real Estate Stories: Make a fortune out of selling properties.
He sold me a bunch of stuff too. Have you had any aggro situations with buyers or sellers that you could think about?
I have. I had probably the hardest transaction I've ever done. My client lied to me about setbacks. They had built something attached to the garage and then lied about the setbacks. Once we got into escrow, disclosed it to me along with 1 or 2 other things and it got out of hand between her and me. I had to become pretty close with the buyers to try and close this transaction. I couldn't even deal with my clients anymore.
Long story short, one day, they asked to come to get into the house and see something. I can't remember what it was. There was a park across the road from this house. My clients didn't trust me for some reason, which is bizarre because I was the one that was lied to. They landed up parking the car on the other side of the park and watching me.
I became friendly with the man and I hugged the buyer when he arrived, “It’s good to see you,” not realizing that my clients were watching me. I do the showing. The next minute, I get the husband and wife calling me, going berserk about how untrustworthy I am, how I'm in cahoots with the buyer. They saw me hug him and I'm like, “What do you mean you saw me hugging?” “We were watching from across the street. Come.”
I'm like, “I'm selling your house which is unsellable because you don't spend an ADU.” We didn't even know what ADU was worth at the time. They were illegal. That was probably the most aggressive anyone's ever come at me. It was terrible. I'll tell you when I've been aggressive to someone else. This is funny. This is a good story.
I'm selling something in the Hollywood Hills, 6 or 7 representing the buyer and it’s a little party house. It’s a beautiful house off Sunset Plaza that views the whole story. Finally, they were renting the house out a little bit to make some money while we were in escrow, which we allowed. I confirmed the agents and said, “Final walkthrough, is everything taken care of or the request for repairs have been done?” “Yes. You're good to go.”
I walk in with my clients to go do this final walkthrough. Everything's fine as we walk in. We go down to the basement level. It looked like they had a rager for a few months in this place. There was lipstick on the walls. There were empty champagne bottles. This is gross but there were condoms in the corner. It was the worst scenario to walk into. My buyer looks at me and goes, “I'm canceling the deal.” We're doing a final walkthrough. It closes escrow in a few days. I'm speechless at the time. Long story short, we figured it out but that was a pretty trippy story. Walking in and being blindsided by that wasn't fun.
You know what's funny, Valerie and I have spoken about this on several shows and dealing on the high end and the super high end, in particular, you get a lot of phony people. I remember one time you called me when I was selling that one on King Jordan. You called me about some guy and said, “What do you think about this story? This guy had a bunch of expensive cars and stuff.”
That was a scam.
That's a funny story. Spill beans on that.
That was that lease situation.
You go, “What do you think I should do?” Remember that?
You said, “Run. Hire an attorney.”
Tell the story. That was funny.
A guy walked into an open house of mine. I arrived and walked him out to his car. There was this fancy Bentley, Rolls-Royce or something. I can't remember. He’s a cool guy. We vibe and he ended up inviting me out for dinner that night. I went and picked up my fiancée at the time, Kim. We met them at Javier’s in Century City. I get to the table. There were a couple of famous people at the table with us. There were his friends. We had dinner and the next minute, they checked out.
He was looking at me. I'm like, “What? You want me to pay for the dinner or something like I picked up a client?” I threw down $20 for my 2 margaritas and did a U-turn. The next day, I showed him a couple of different houses for lease and these were big leases something like $30,000, $40,000 a month or something. The guy arrived in a different car. He gave me proof of funds. When I emailed you, I said, “What do you think of the situation?” Something wasn't adding up. We googled him. I don't know why he wasn't in jail but he was a scammer out of Vegas.
Wasn't that the guy that you said, “The guy wants me to invest in a car?”
He wanted me to invest in a car business because I'm into cars, which I almost wired him my life savings.
It's amazing, the people we meet. They're driving Ferraris or Rolls. There are so many scammers out there. It's incredible.
I had one. She gave me a bank statement and it seemed strange to me. I went to the bank with the statement and the bank said, “I'm sorry we can't discuss any of our clients but I can tell you that those last four numbers are not the bank.” It’s a total made-up fraud bank statement for $10 million.
I had that happen to me. I have a listing up on Sunset Plaza that fell out of escrow. Funny enough, the agent that represented the buyer who fell out of escrow calls me 1 week or 2 later and says, “I have a different client that I want to show the property to but I can't come. Someone else from the office is going to do the showing. Are you cool?” I'm like, “I don't care.”
I had no issue with her. She showed the house and the guy arrives. He looks like he's fifteen years old. I'm like, “Is this the buyer or the buyer's kid?” “This is the buyer. He's a developer.” I spend an hour out of my day walking through the fixer-upper and everything. She emails me and goes, “I've got the most amazing news for you. I'm sending you an offer.”
It's quite a hard property to sell. I'm like, “Wow, this is amazing.” It’s the same agent. We've fallen out of escrow. This is meant to be. She and I are half-fiving each other going, “We’re going to sell this together.” I'm like, “What's the offer?” She's like, “Non-contingent, ten days or cash.” We'd already gone through the escrow with her previous plan so I'm thinking she made this guy feel comfortable. I'm like, “Great. Send it over.” She sends over the offer. I'm already texting my client, which I shouldn't have, “We're back in business. It's a done deal.” She sends it and I get the offer, which is legit. I look at the proof of funds, which is in an LLC and a couple of numbers wrapped up.
I look to the right and it's got $209 million deposited and $287 million going out in the same month. I'm like, “Not even Apple is having these ins and outs.” I call her and go, “Did you look up the proof of funds you sent me?” She goes, “No, I got it and forwarded it along.” I'm like, “It's a fraudulent offer. The proof of funds is not real.” It wasn't.
Imagine that person is still out there, looking and scamming around other properties until they get a signature on a contract.
Here's my question. What's the motive for that? Let's say I missed that proof of funds. Let's say we signed the agreement, not a non-contingent deal. Any deposit going in, assuming that a deposit even weighs in but let's say it did. I don't understand the upside for them in that situation.
They wouldn't make a deposit. They would take that contract to scam somebody else by saying, “I've bought this house. They leverage that into another scam.”
I've never had an actual fraudulent and I've had a lot of fraudulent stuff where someone put the deposit in.
They don't put the deposit in.
Sometimes they want to get paid to get out of the deal.
I've had that. It could be $50,000 to go away.
Every time they give a bunch of delays why the deposit can't come in, it's phony. I got a glass of wine here because I heard some guys wiring in $71 million into this deal I've been working on for a few months. I saw that it was supposedly wired but half of it is coming from Nigeria. I don't know whether it's legitimate or not.
Until the deposit is in, forget it. Once the deposit is in, at least they've got some money but so much fake stuff goes on. It's incredible. What's the strangest situation you've had that you can think of maybe with a buyer that you've had? Have you wasted time with someone that turns out to be psycho, weird or anything like that?
I'm pretty good with the buyers. I haven't had a lot of issues with buyers. I'm always dealing with buyers. I'm pretty good at thinking through the bullshit. I haven't had too many crazy issues with buyers. Probably that guy from Vegas was maybe one of the weirder ones I've had.
Always deal with buyers, and be good at affecting them.
They can't get too far because they tell you the story. You follow the story about where they were, what they do and what their business is. You can google them. It's a lot easier now than it was many years ago.
What's interesting is that with the way the market is, it's tough. Even Brett was mentioning this when we were talking that out of how many agents, 70% of them didn't do 1 deal in 2021.
I read a little article. I can't remember where I saw it. It said that there are 1.4 million real estate agents in America at the moment and 800,000 of them didn't do 1 transaction in 2022.
Funny Real Estate Stories: 1.4 million real estate agents in America at the moment. Okay. There are. And 800,000 of them didn't do one transaction in 2022.
If you've been in this business a long time like we have, you'll see this iteration where the market gets bad and agents get desperate, even good agents that are experienced. They will push a deal through, even though we know it's bogus and then you'll say, “This is not real.” They go, “Maybe it is,” because there's a desperation mode to reaching for straws.
They want to believe in that. I got to tell you, Brad, it's great to meet you.
Nice to meet you too, Val.
Thanks for joining us. If our readers would like to reach out to you sometime, what's the best way they can reach you?
You can get me on my cell phone at (310) 435-3998 or at BrettMillerHomes.com.
Maybe we'll come back again or see you in person and do this again.
I hope so. Thanks for having me.
Thank you.
It’s great having you. We'll talk later on.
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He's a darling.
Brett's great.
He’s a cute guy. I wish I'd run into him.
You will. You do deals. He does a lot of deals and is a dealmaker for sure.
Bob, our readers are thrilled to bring you all the stories and some laughter. You never know what's going to happen on our show.
Absolutely not. Brett goes, “What are we talking about?” I go, “There are one million experiences. Nothing is prepared. We just talk about the real world and come up with whatever.” It's very much different from anything you'll see on TV or anything like that because these are real stories from real people that are in the trenches doing business.
This is the real deal. Readers, if you want to share your stories with us, go to RealEstateRealLaughs.com and join us again.
Thanks, Valerie. Have a good one. We'll talk next time.
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