Celebrity agent Josh Altman backs new homebuyer safety net in California

Exclusive: When celebrity real estate agent and investor Josh Altman gets an offer for a product partnership, he says 99% of the time the answer is “no.”

But on Wednesday, Altman began his new gig as an advisor and spokesman for a tool he calls a “game changer” to protect first-time homebuyers in one of the most expensive and competitive housing markets in the country.

“Real estate, in my opinion, is the best investment, not a good investment. It’s always the best investment,” Altman exclusively told Fox News Digital. “When I heard about Home Value Lock, there were a few different reasons I loved it, believed in it, and am now a part of it. First – it helps the masses.”

By teaming up with California-based insurance company Home Value Lock, Altman — who rose to fame for 15 years on Bravo’s “Million Dollar Listing” — said he wants to bring confidence back to homeownership, especially for first- or second-time buyers who purchase homes for less than $2 million.

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After a trial run in Sacramento, the company now offers homebuyers a guaranteed “safety net” by covering up to 10% of the purchase price if the home is sold within three years during a market downturn. Buyer Protection will launch in Los Angeles, Orange County and the San Francisco Bay Area, with plans to expand into Arizona and Texas.

“Buying a home should be exciting, not terrifying,” Oliver Tickner, CEO of Home Value Lock, said in a statement. “For too long, everyday buyers have borne all the risk. We created Home Value Lock to flip that scenario – to pave the way forward even when the headlines say ‘stay where you are.’ Having Josh on our team not only brings credibility to our product, it underscores our shared belief that trust, not fear, should define this market.”

“The affordability factor of real estate has really changed… A buyer has a median priced home of about $1 million in California, and we’re talking about a down payment of about $250,000. That’s a good amount of money. So there’s not a lot of room for error,” Altman said.

“The California homebuying market is always tough, right? And that’s what we pride ourselves on — navigating our buyers and sellers through this market,” he added. “You have to realize that buying and selling a home is a very scary process…protecting people and protecting their investments is the most important thing you can do.”

“Of course, you hear about mortgage insurance. Guess who it protects? It protects the bank and the lender. So I’m more concerned.” [in]because of what I do for a living, buyer protection. “I want them to be in a good place, where if they need to sell in the first three years of buying a property, it makes it easier for them to get out of that property.”

According to the California Association of Realtors 2025 forecast, the statewide median home price is expected to rise to $909,400 in 2025 — up from about $869,500 in 2024 and $814,000 in 2023. Meanwhile, estimates provided by state builders to the nonprofit CalMatters show that California building code updates over the past 15 years have Add between $51,000 and $117,000 to the cost of building each single-family home.

“In California, it’s expensive. There’s no doubt about that,” Altman said. “Because of home prices, a lot of people have been priced out. And since the pandemic, we’ve just seen it continue to go up and up… regardless of taxes, regardless of mansion taxes or anything like that, first of all, prices are still competitive… which shows that houses are moving, and deals are getting tougher.”

Altman says early results in California have been a “huge success” and that “you shouldn’t buy a home for under $1.5 million without this.”

“This is another layer of protection, not for the lender, not for everything else, but for the actual homebuyer. That’s why it’s a game changer,” he said. “It’s such a small fee that anyone can get it.”

“Being in real estate over the last 12 months…everything has changed…There our industry as a whole, and even on the agency side, is constantly moving: new rules, new ordinances, new laws, whatever it may be. However, I will tell you that this is just another thing going in the right direction to protect buyer and seller,” Altman expanded.

“I’ve been helping people for 20 years – protecting them and their investments is the most important thing you can do. When I invest in real estate, no matter what it is, I always try to be as conservative as possible. That’s the way you should always go into any real estate deal.”

-Josh Altman

Although he’s usually the face of multi-million dollar deals, Altman expressed a desire to help buyers make what he calls “the biggest investment of their lives.”

“Whether it’s a $500,000 deal or a $50 million deal, it’s the same deal,” he added. “The wealthy have many different tools on how to invest in real estate, how to hedge their bets, how to make sure that their losses versus gains are somewhere else, no matter what it is. But this is more about homebuyers… when it is about the American masses that they are protecting.”

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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 confidence rather than fear.

“We can look at the future of the market, we can guess, we can rely on data, but at the end of the day, 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.”

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