Paul Kurdian - Lucent Real Estate Realtor Scam Palm Springs Palm Springs California

Late last year (2015) I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life when I chose to engage Paul Kurdian (owner of Lucent Real Estate, Inc.) to sell my commercial property in Cathedral City (Palm Springs, California, for those not familiar with the area). He came highly recommended from a mutual acquaintance and upon our first meeting I found him to be very friendly and outgoing. He immediately inspired confidence that he would be able to get me top dollar for my property. He guided me through the listing process and provided an appraiser and a professional photographer that did great work at rock bottom prices.

Initially we listed the property at price which I thought was somewhat aggressive, but at the same time reasonable for the market at the time. There were frequent showings but few qualified offers. After just 2-3 weeks on the market, Paul began pressuring me to lower the price. Because I was motivated for a quick sale and had expressed this previously (much to my chagrin) I acquiesced to his first request to lower the price without much thought or reflection.

After lowering the price, showings increased dramatically but there still seemed to be a dearth of qualified buyers. Just two or three more weeks down the road Paul began pressuring me to lower the price again. Given the high number of showings I felt unconvinced that this was a necessary move to make but I was under considerable financial pressures to sell the property so I once again I agreed to lower the price. Frequent showings continued but the offers I received were low ball, and from unqualified buyers with bad credit and no mortgage commitment in place.

Approximately two months after we listed the property, Paul approached me the third time recommending that I again lower the price. I immediately became suspicious. As a Canadian, I had to do some independent market research in my spare time. While I felt the current listing price might be slightly optimistic, I felt it was more than fair given the recent sales of comparables. It was at this point that I began to smell a rat.

I enlisted the help of my cousin-in-law. I offered to put him up for the weekend and to show him a few nights on the town in exchange for his assistance. He called up Paul and said he found the listing through Paul's website (http://lucentrealestate.com) and made an appointment to see he property on a Friday afternoon. He was to be my potential buyer in disguise. I asked him to visit the property and to express a great deal of interest but to make it clear that the price was a bit out of his range. Nevertheless, he was to indicate strong interest in the property and to make several inquiries about "how motivated" the seller might be.

The conversation that my cousin related to me was shocking and appalling. He said that Paul invited him to a coffee after the showing and proceeded to tell him that the seller was a "total sucker" with absolutely "no grasp on the local real estate market" and furthermore, that the seller was "under extreme financial pressure to sell". [Back story: Lucky coincidence that my cousin happened to be a mortgage broker and knew how to present himself as an extremely qualified buyer]. To cut to the chase, Paul told my cousin that if he offered me 10-15% below my asking price (twice reduced) in cash, that he could almost certainly "con that sucker" into a quick settlement. The caveat being, that there would be $25,000 kickback to Paul, if he could close the deal with a settlement within 30 days at 10% or more below the asking price. I have since learned, that this constitutes fraud in the state of California.

Long story short, stay far away from Paul Kurdian, owner of Lucent Real Estate, Inc. When I signed up with Paul originally, I was totally convinced I had found a straight shooter that would honor his fiduciary responsibilities to me with the utmost candor. Little did I know, I had found myself a seasoned con-artist who planned from day one to exploit me as a naive seller in order to pocket a quick commission rather than honoring his commitment to help me secure the best possible sale price.

Disgusted,

Another PK Victim

Paul is a Strategic, Client Centric, and Results Oriented Real Estate & Business Broker with an MBA degree from University of Southern California (Marshall School of Business) and graduated from California State University, Los Angeles with a BA in Economics. (Languages: English, Armenian, & Arabic).