EXCLUSIVE: When famed real estate agent and investor Josh Altman gets a pitch for a product partnership, he says the answer is “no” 99% of the time.
But on Wednesday, Altman begins a new gig as an adviser and spokesman for a tool he calls a “game changer” for protecting first-time homebuyers in one of the nation’s most expensive and competitive housing markets.
By teaming up with California-based insurance company Home Value Lock, Altman — best known for his 15 years on Bravo’s “Million Dollar Listing” — said he wants to bring confidence back to homeownership, especially for first- or second-time buyers purchasing homes under $2 million.
CALIFORNIANS TEMPTED TO LEAVE IT ALL BEHIND FOR MIAMI’S HORRIBLE REAL ESTATE MARKET
After a trial period in Sacramento, the company is now offering homebuyers a guaranteed “safety net” by covering up to 10% of the purchase price if the home sells within three years during a market downturn. Buyer Protection is launching in Los Angeles, Orange County and the San Francisco Bay Area, with plans to expand to Arizona and Texas.
Josh Altman of “Million Dollar Listing” partners with Home Value Lock to protect home purchases when the market slumps. (Getty Images)
“Buying a home should be exciting, not terrifying,” said Oliver Tickner, CEO of Home Value Lock, in a statement. “For too long, everyday buyers have borne all the risk. We built Home Value Lock to flip that script – to pave a way forward even when the headlines say ‘stay put.’ Not only does having Josh on board build our product’s credibility, but it also underscores our shared belief that trust, not fear, should define this market.”
“The affordability factor of real estate has really changed…A buyer with an average home price of approx a million dollars in CaliforniaWe’re talking about a down payment of about $250,000. That’s a significant amount. So there is very little room for error,” Altman said.
“The home buying market in California is always tough, right? And that’s what we pride ourselves on: guiding our buyers and sellers through that market,” he added. “You have to realize that buying and selling a home is a very scary process. Protecting them and protecting their investment is the most important thing you can do.”
Josh Altman told Fox Business that there will be a “whole new group” of people moving to the Pacific Palisades.
“Of course you hear about mortgage insurance. Guess who that protects? It protects the bank, the lender. So I’m more interested [in]because of what I do for a living, protecting the buyer. I want them to be in a good place where, if they ever have to sell in the first three years of purchasing a property, it makes it easier for them to leave that property.”
The California Association of REALTORS® 2025 forecast predicts the median home price statewide rising to $909,400 in 2025 — an increase of about $869,500 in 2024 and $814,000 in 2023. Meanwhile, estimates provided by state builders to nonprofit CalMatters show that updates to California building codes over the past fifteen years have added between $51,000 and $117,000 to the cost of building each single-family home.
“In California, it’s expensive. There’s no question about that,” Altman said. “Because of house prices, a lot of people have been priced out. And since the pandemic we’ve seen it keep going up… And whatever the taxes are, whatever the taxes on estates are or anything like that, first of all, the rates are still competitive… It’s telling that houses are moving, the deals are just getting tougher.”
Data from Realtor.com shows that in Los Angeles the median home price is more than $1.1 million. | Getty Images
Altman says the early results in California have been “a huge success” and that “without this, no one should buy a home under $1.5 million.”
“This is a new layer of protection, not for the lender, not for anything else, but for the actual homebuyer. And that’s why it’s a game changer,” he said. “It’s such a small compensation that everyone should be able to get it.”
“Being in the real estate industry for the last 12 months… everything has changed… There’s our industry as a whole and even on the real estate agency side, it’s constantly evolving: the new rules, the new regulations, the new laws, whatever they may be. But I’ll tell you, this is just another thing that’s moving in the right direction when it comes to buyer and seller protection,” Altman said.
“I’ve been holding people’s hands for 20 years now. Protecting them and protecting their investment is the most important thing you can do. When I invest in real estate, whatever it is, I always try to be as conservative as possible. And that’s how you should always go into a real estate deal.”
Although he is typically the face of multimillion-dollar deals, Altman expressed his enthusiasm for helping buyers with what he calls “the largest investment of their lives.”
“Whether it’s a $500,000 deal or a $50 million deal, it’s the same deal,” he said. “Rich people have a lot of different tools for investing in real estate, how to hedge their bets, how to make sure their losses outweigh the gains somewhere else, whatever it is. But this is more for that home buyer… when it comes to the masses of America it’s protecting.”
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Josh and Heather Altman of Bravo’s “Million Dollar Listing: Los Angeles” share their keys to managing an ever-changing housing market full of uncertainty.
For skeptics who may think the California market is still too risky or question the need for a backup plan, the celebrity agent urges buyers to prepare for the unexpected – and focus on trust over fear.
“We can look at the future of the market, we can guess, we can go by data, but ultimately if you find a house you like, you should buy it. But you just have to make sure you can afford it – and always plan a conservative exit, contrary to what everyone tells you is going to happen in the market.”
