Behind the Scenes of Celebrity Real Estate

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3:15The best business tool out there isn't productivity software, your corporate card, or even your phone. It is confidence. And Dylan Eckhart has that in spades. Dylan is a real estate agent, one of the cast members of HBO Max's Selling the Hamptons, and the self-proclaimed Prince of Montauk. He grew up in Montauk, and so the Hamptons has become his real estate area of expertise. But he also works in LA, and honestly, you get the impression that he has properties everywhere. Today, we talk about where he gets his confidence, and I get his take on some controversial stories in the real estate world, from Jeff Bezos to Diddy, Mariah Carey, and everyone in between.

3:53When he tells the stories, I can't honestly tell if he's bluffing. So I take everything he says with a grain of salt, but I hope the Mariah Carey story is true because honestly, I fell in love with her a little bit more after this. For all the celebrity real estate tea, here's Dylan.

4:10Dylan Eckhart, welcome to Money Rehab. Better than going to rehab, right? Have you ever been to real rehab? No. Have you ever needed money rehab? Definitely not good with money. Why do you say that? Well, someone said to me a long time ago, Dylan, you've got an addiction, a bad addiction of spending money, but you have a better addiction of making money. So at the same time, it keeps me moving. I've always wanted the best. And I grew up in Montauk. Montauk was a small fishing town with a drinking problem before, I guess they said I sold it out. But it was a small town with a drinking problem in the Hamptons.

4:44Now it's a small drinking town with a yuppie problem. and the yuppies. I don't know if you guys use that word on the West Coast, but yuppies is like young, urban, rich. But we had learned to adapt. When you grew up in a town like I grew up in the Hamptons, 12 months a year, it's cool Memorial Day to Labor Day. Don't get me wrong. But come Labor Day, day after Labor Day, we call it Tumbleweed Tuesday because the last day is Monday and Tumbleweed Tuesday means back to normal. My graduating class was eight kids. My graduating high school class was 36 kids. Now it's turned into a year-round residence.

5:17When did you start making money? Straight out the womb. I've always had a hustler's mentality, but I've always been that person where people would come to the Hamptons and need to know where to go, what to do. My mother had a restaurant. So people always were like, can I get a reservation? Can I get this? Can I get that? And finally, I was like, all right, enough is enough. Like, how much am I going to do for that? I hate to say it right now. I know it's a horrible, touchy subject, but Diddy was the first person to tell me about taking equity over money. So what I was doing was selling hotel groups.

5:47So I would sell a hotel and I'll talk for 50 million. Instead of taking money, I would take equity. I would own 0.0001%. Restaurants, surf lunch, 0.001%. And I would take equity in a lot of the deals I did. Was Diddy your client? I did two Diddy's houses. obviously he's in the news for horrific stuff he was also in the news about his real estate recently he tried to leverage it for bail well he paid off his mortgage because right in florida there's the homestead act that they can't take it away if he pays well he also used that to try to bail himself out he tried to put that as collateral who's your favorite celebrity to work with myself You think you're a celebrity?

6:28I think I'm infamous. I think that I'm that guy. I think that I do turn dreams into reality. I think everyone's famous in their own mind. So besides you, you've worked with so many. From Justin Bieber. I did Justin, Kanye, Post Malone this year, Dre London. I did Selena. I did Rihanna. I like Justin. Pretty business. Pretty heads off. And I like people that trust other people. Like not a micromanager. Not a helicopter. Who's the craziest celebrity? We can bleep it out. I don't give a fuck. Kind of. Why? We're both a lot alike. We're both a little manic. He got a ball. He don't even cipher his own shit.

7:08He's a lot to deal with. You also helped Mariah Carey find a rental in the Hamptons, right? Yeah, it turned into a set. I got trouble for that one. So yeah, I was listing a house for$50 million in the way. Hamptons adjacent? Yeah, adjacent. I love that word. And Mariah, this is a great story, actually. I get a phone call and it's like, Hey Dylan, it's MC. I'm like, where are you? I'm like, all right, cool. Like who? And they're like, Oh, Jay McCardez. I gave me your phone number. Who owns surf lodge? I was like, all right, cool. And they're like, MC. I'm like, are we like a DJ? Like what's going on?

7:40You're like, I got time for this shit. And I'm quick on the phone. Like I don't deal with bullshit. I was like, all right. Like it's Mariah. I said, Mariah who? I was like, Mariah Carey. I'm like, all right, cool. I'm like, FaceTime me. She's like, I'm not going to FaceTime me. And I could hear it. And I'm stuck. I said, I'm like, I don't have time for this. But I'm going to hang up the phone. I thought it was someone fucking with me. And the phone calls back. Hey, Dylan, this is Fran. I represent Mariah Carey. I said, all right, cool. Just listen. I didn't get time for this shit. I'm busy. I'm running around.

8:08They're like, she needs a house in the Hamptons. She's going to perform yada, yada, yada at this place. All right, cool. I'm like, Mariah's not performing in the Hamptons. Because the only live music venue is I own. So I doubt that. Boom, I hang up again. now the owner of the live music day jama calls me i'm just like dylan mariah's been reaching out now i call them back now they're not answering finally the a picture sent of mariah giving me the thing i'm like all right cool we end up linking up and uh it was the worst fucking deal of my life first of all when she left that house she left 150 diet coke cans in that house the whole house had to be fumigated because there was so much perfume smell in the house.

8:51And she took every mattress from the whole house and put it in the master bedroom. And I understand if you have kids, you want them to sleep next to you on the floor, but not 12 mattresses. And the dye Coke cans were everywhere. The whole house had to be fumigated when she left because of the perfume smell. So she basically trashed the house? How much does she rent this house for? Not enough. so why is it the worst deal you've done because i had to pick up 150 diet coke cans you personally did that yes and do you still work with her yeah it's not always the case that being a celebrity will sell your house right it brings attention to the property and your increase is about 18 to 35 percent extra because there are a lot of star fuckers out there you saw the michael jordan house in chicago it took a decade yeah and it's still lost but then again michael was staying on a number the reason celebrities don't want you to use their name to sell their house is because they don't want people to think they're going broke they don't want people to think they're in financial problems and having to sell their house but that's not the only reason you sell a house that's a lot of times you think of that oh she'll be going to call my seller house and about though in your head is why is she selling her house?

10:10Is she financial problems? What's the biggest super fan you've seen buy their idol's house? I think it's Beau Bellwood who had just sold Kanye West's house. I think it's a really tough one to buy. Matsuyu, the designer that designed it, but Kanye took this house and ripped all the windows, all the doors. And I'll show you videos of what it looks like right now. No windows, no doors, and tried to make that a full bunker. No windows, no plumbing, no electric, no anything. he ripped it all out. Sounds great for resale. No, no. The town said, are you fucking nuts? So he sat it there for four years as a monstrosity.

10:47And now you have neighbors. Everyone's like, what the fuck are we doing here? Wasn't there the story out of Florida where there's a seller suing Douglas Elliman for the house that Jeff Bezos bought? That's a crazy thing. So basically what happened is that they were approached to take a few million off. I And then it sold for 79. And he asked the CEO of Douglas Elliman if the buyer was Bezos. And they said no. And now he's pissed that he gave it at a discount. First of all, you don't have to disclose. That's confident. All right. I'm kind of on team Bezos for this one. Obviously, why wouldn't you be?

11:24Whoever's buying a house should not matter if you're worth$100 million or you're worth$100 ,000. And because it is him, they're upset because they lost a few million. First of all, the house, I believe, was worth$73 million. yeah if that so what that's like saying that if you see me pull up in a ferrari that you're gonna charge me extra than if i pulled up in a prius it's the same scenario it shouldn't matter what you are who you are how much money you have it's what the property is worth and how quick they're willing to sell it that was lucky they got that fucking deal because i don't believe the deal was worth it the first time we talked you really went through your bona fides around real estate.

12:02You gave me like a really great elevator pitch. I was very impressed. What it is, is people look at me and they don't Google me. I'm tatted up. I drive bulletproof cars and I'm very, I guess it comes across as arrogant, but I would say it's just a little bit of, I'm insecure. So I covered it up with that. It's like, oh, here's my guard up. All right. You can pick on the prints, but Dylan is Dylan Eckhart, who I really am. He's very scared. What are you scared of? Everything. That's why I'm curious is because you really gave me this pitch, which I thought was so persuasive and also so confident.

12:37And I think a lot of people don't know how to pitch themselves. It's an alter ego. That's what it is. That's the Jekyll and Hyde. It's like, I demand excellence. I give excellence in business. I'm that guy. There's no one better than me in real estate. There isn't because it is, I don't stop. What I say is we could sit in a room together, you and me. Let's say there's three people here. You're going to try to sell your house. You say it's worth$20 million. Altman's going to say, okay, I'll list it for$20. I'm not that dude. I'm not going to list it for$20 because I'm an analyst. So I know it's worth$16 ,500.

13:11So am I going to say this? I'm going to say, listen, I'll get you$17 million for the house. I don't want to list. I'm not going to sit in an open house, hand out fucking waters and fucking cookies and walk it through a three-bedroom house. I'm not doing that. I'm going to show you what it is and how it's done. And you know what it was? is over years of being a party boy and always being out, people used to always approach me. I used to wear shirts that said, no pictures or humble with a hint of Kanye, you know? Because I always wanted that give or take attention, but I've always got it because I'm fuck you good looking.

13:39I serve really well and I'm super connected. So I've always had that thing. But I used to do this is when people would say, how much is my house worth? And I'm out at Surf Lodge at two in the morning. Oh, 6 million. The next day I get the call. Hey Dylan, it's Jonathan. You said my house worth 6 million dollars. I'd love to listen with you. I'm like, yeah, what house was that? Then I'm running numbers. So when people say, all right, I'm looking for this, and they're going to use a regular agent. I don't give a fuck if it's Tracy Tudor, Josh Holtman, fucking Frederick, anyone, Aaron Kirkman, any of the big boys.

14:10They're going to take time to find this. I'm not. I'm going to already have it in my Rolodex. When I use the word Rolodex, because I am old school, I treat real estate like stock market in the eight. When it's high, we sell. When it's low, we buy. And I deal with a lot of developers and a lot of funds where people allow me to deal with 50, 60 million dollars of their money as long as I'm giving back a 20 % return. And I never fail. All right, Dylan, we end our episodes by asking all of our guests for a tip, a money tip that listeners can take straight to the bank. Never use your own money. Other money is cheap right now and you can always refinance and pull out and then pay off.

14:47Use other people's money. Use your 10, 20 % debt of yours. Take a hard money loan or take a mortgage on the property. you can always refinance that and pull money out more than it's worth.

15:02Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan Lavoie. Our researcher is Emily Holmes. Do you need some money rehab? And let's be honest, we all do. So email us your money questions, moneyrehab at moneynewsnetwork.com to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me and follow us on Instagram at Money News and TikTok at Money News Network for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you. No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.

15:51Thank you.