Most young L.A. real estate agents cut their teeth on two-bedroom starter condos in Van Nuys, not million-dollar mansions north of Sunset Boulevard. But glam escrow paperwork is practically a birthright for Chad Rogers. The 28-year-old grew up in the Malibu Colony– "I couldn't surf, but I definitely tanned"– before migrating to Beverly Hills, where, as a realtor at Rick Hilton's boutique brokerage firm across the street from Mastro's, he's been shepherding a steady stream of sales on behalf of clients like Minnie Driver, Nick Lachey and System of a Down rocker Shavo Odadjian. Once voted Most Likely To Be Donald Trump or Michael Milken at Santa Monica High, Rogers landed his first big-time commission by sweet-talking Carol Matthau into selling her late husband's (Walter Matthau) estate at a Fourth of July beach party five years ago. Since then, he's cornered the Colony's summer rental market while amusing himself with a couple of only-in-this-town side projects: Look for a line of vegan cuisine at Erewhon called Raw La Land and, pilot season allowing, a self-hosted, Cribs-like celebrity real estate show to debut somewhere along the outer orbit of cable TV. The dilettantism of such vanity ventures aside, Rogers is of a surprisingly conservative bent when discussing the local real estate bubble, which he's convinced will pop within a year, mainly due to mass defaults on low-interest loans. Such a cooling trend may finally lure Rogers himself into the mortgage market. Despite all of those high-profile closings, he's still a longtime renter in a Wilshire corridor high-rise just east of Westwood.

... article from Angeleno Magazine