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A Compass agent with a Million Dollar Listing credit under his belt is in trouble after his clients returned to their West Hollywood condo following a showing, only to find the home flooded, alarms blaring and the Realtor missing in action.
Matt Isbell | Compass
Condo owners Aaron Schwid and Youngkey Chung had hired Compass agent Matt Isbell in part because of his connection to Million Dollar Listing, believing that if his reputation was good enough to appear on the show, he should also be qualified enough to sell their condo.
After meeting Isbell in-person, “we felt that instant connection,” Chung told local LA NBC investigative team The I-Team. They signed a three-month contract with Isbell with the hopes of making a quick sale since they had already purchased a new home.
“We took a calculated risk that we would put everything we have into the new house,” Schwid told The I-Team. “But we would be okay, because we really believed this house would sell really quickly.”
So that Isbell could have some dedicated time to show the property to potential buyers, the couple left town for a few days.
Two days later, they received an offer and went into escrow — but the celebratory period didn’t last very long. Just a few days later, the couple’s neighbors alerted them that something was really off.
“We received frantic text messages and calls from our neighbor saying that there were fire alarms going off and water was leaking out of our house,” Chung told The I-Team.
When the couple got back home, they found the condo’s third-floor sprinklers had been activated, flooding the home and wreaking roughly $200,000 in damages.
After investigating the house, the couple found that the fireplace switch was turned on, something that a remediation company also took note of. The couple then reviewed an hourly breakdown of their natural gas bill, which showed usage spiking just after the property’s home security footage shows Isbell arriving at the property for home showings. Usage stayed elevated for the next four days while no one was in the unit, which the couple believes is what activated the sprinklers.
“Our best guess is that the fireplace remained on for four days,” Schwid told The I-Team. “It heated the room to about 135 degrees, which is what triggers the fire sprinklers to break and explode. And that water is what ruined everything in our house.”
The couple claims that since confronting Isbell and Compass with their findings, the agent and his brokerage have avoided resolving the situation while also refusing the couple’s request for both Isbell and Compass to walk away from the deal altogether.
“We feel both abandoned and trapped at the same time,” Schwid said. “We thought [Compass] had a reputation for service and integrity and honesty.”
In the meantime, the couple must pay two mortgages and hope that they can close the deal soon (the original buyer remains interested). If nothing changes, Compass will earn more than $100,000 in commissions on the sale.
The median sales price of a condo in West Hollywood was $899,000 during Q3 2023, according to a Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel market report.
Compass told The I-Team that it would attempt to resolve the matter through mediation. Subsequently, Schwid and Chung told the news outlet that those negotiations hit a dead end.
In such scenarios, it is typical for brokerages to draw on errors and omissions insurance to cover damages, attorney Stephen Vokshori said. Compass did not tell The I-Team why it was not filing a claim for the incident.
Schwid and Chung’s next step could be a lawsuit against Compass and Isbell.
“I think they’ve got a great case,” Vokshori told The I-Team. “I’d be asking for them to be made whole. So you’ve got your carrying costs for your mortgage, your property taxes, you’re probably going to have attorneys fees.”
The couple said they’d rather not sue, but don’t know how else to keep the brokerage accountable.
“It’s just so tragic that this is the end memory of it,” Chung said. “It’s so unfair this is how we have to say goodbye to it.”
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