WATCH: How Jared Seligman saved himself from losing his first-ever clients

Douglas Elliman broker Jared Seligman credits being listed to sell Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s penthouse back in late 2007 as the defining moment of his career. Though he was later dropped from the listing — a $12 million penthouse at 1 Morton Square — Seligman went on to accumulate a long roster of celebrity clients, including Courtney Love, James Franco and Kirsten Dunst, among others.

“That was really when I went from a $700 rental to a $10 million sale, and that was the turning point of my career,” he told The Real Deal.

But before he brokered deals for the likes of the Olsen twins, real estate wasn’t exactly glamorous for Seligman.

“You have no idea what I’ve done to make deals happen,” Seligman said, before launching into a frenetic list of dramatic situations, including being chased by paparazzi and finding a gun conspicuously placed beneath a nightstand to scare off potential buyers. “At this stage of the game nothing shocks me,” he said.

The broker’s teeth-cutting started on his first day as a rental agent at Citi Habitats in 2004, when he was just 18 years old. Thinking he had discovered the “Super Bowl” of listings, the $1,500-a-month rental on the Lower East Side proved to be a bust. Seligman’s lack of real estate chops almost cost him his first pair of clients.

For the full story, watch the video above.

For more videos, visit The Real Deal’s YouTube page.