Episode 274 - Steven Zellman

Thursday, August 13 | Discussing Golf, Baseball, and Rentals

We’re joined by Steve Zellman, who worked the tournament as a marshal and somehow landed on a tee box with no spectators, just players, police escorts, and a job that can’t be missed. He breaks down the paddle system, the crosswalk control, and why wind turns a “volunteer role” into a test of focus. The most human moment comes when a struggling golfer hits rock bottom and literally breaks down, reminding us how thin the line is between composure and collapse.

We talk about why rentals matter, how consistent move-in and move-out attention creates real trust, and why that relationship often becomes the pipeline to a future sale. We also share this week’s Hamptons market stats, including contracts, dollar volume, a wave of new listings, and what ongoing low inventory means for buyers, sellers, and renters planning their next move on the East End.

Finally, we detour into the modern sports card boom: limited print runs, grading, high-priced hobby boxes, and the rush of pulling a rare card that could be worth five figures. We wrap with weekend picks, including Wolffer Estate Vineyards, a Westhampton Beach show, Ellen’s 5K, and a quick restaurant answer that lands without hesitation. 

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Transcript

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Welcome And Sponsor Spotlight

Andrew Doud 0:08

All right, everyone, it's Thursday. It's time for our Happening in the Hamptons podcast, our weekly breakdown of the Hamptons Market, new listings and events on the East End. We are sponsored as always by New York Title Abstract, the Hamptons leading title insurance firm. Visit New YorkTitle.com. We have Mr. Steve Glick, Dave Retiner, and today Steve Zellman. How are you? I'm good. How are you doing? Good to have you in. Um, let's talk a little bit about rentals, sales, the U.S. Open, and then we're also going to get to, of all things, baseball cards. But first, I do

U.S. Open Marshaling Up Close

Andrew Doud 0:41

want to talk. So the last time we had you on the podcast, you were all excited because the U.S. Open was like, I don't know, a couple weeks away. Yep. And you were, I don't want uh well, I'll say participating, not as a player, although that would have been cool. No, as a marshal. But you were a marshal. What does that mean? How was it?

SPEAKER_02 0:58

It was the most five most unbelievable days of my life. So you were there every day. Every day. Okay, cool. Except one, by the way. I took one day off. But um what I didn't expect was to be assigned to the third T box. And the third T box has no spectators. So it was just me, the players, the police, if they had a an you know, an escort police escort. Okay, and that was it. And we were up there alone, and I watched every player hit every drive in the street.

Dave Rattiner 1:32

So the third And did you walk up and say, Oh my god, can I do that? No, I did not.

Andrew Doud 1:35

He did not. He's sitting there with a camera taking selfies of everybody.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

No, I was taking pictures, though.

Andrew Doud 1:41

They allowed you to do that. Yes. It's because you can't do that at Augusta, right? Like there's like no, whatever, and it's like a whole thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

So because I was I want to copy their swings, so I was videotaping the partnership. Smart, smart.

Andrew Doud 1:53

So what does it mean to be a marshal? Like are you you're it are you holding the quiet sign?

SPEAKER_02 1:56

Are you but there's nobody there? My job was to the um second green was about uh 50 yards to the right.

Andrew Doud 2:04

Okay.

Paddle Signals And On-Course Pressure

SPEAKER_02 2:05

So when the second if there were three players when the one guy is left to putt, okay, that's when I go to the front of the T-Box and I hold the signs and cross them. Okay. Because that's a 500-yard hole. Three is.

unknown 2:20

What?

SPEAKER_02 2:21

The three is three is a five hundred. In the middle is a crosswalk. So when they see the X go up, I'm showing him my hands, it's ridiculous. We're doing a plug. That makes sense, yeah. But anyway, they see the X go up, and that means they gotta shut the gates so nobody can walk across while the players are hitting, or until the players go past the crosswalk. That's an important job.

Andrew Doud 2:41

Yeah. I mean, imagine somebody like getting in the middle of play, and then it's like, you know.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

So now the players come up to the T-Box, and I stand at the back of the T-box now, and I have the paddles, I'm holding them up, okay, just straight up. And when the player hits, I either have to say it's going left, right, or just keep them straight and it's going in the middle.

Andrew Doud 3:01

This is a this is not a nothing job. This is a good idea.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

Yeah, just these guys hit it so hard and so high, and the sound coming off the club is nothing I've ever heard.

Steve Glick 3:14

Did you ever not see the ball? Like when you were like, did you sneeze in between nuts? And you're like, uh, we're gonna assume straight into perfection.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

I looked and you couldn't see. One time I did that, and the other guy on the T-Bax, one of the other few marshals up there, he goes, Go on left. What are you talking about? Just like what are you looking at?

Dave Rattiner 3:49

Like it's over there.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

And then Friday was really windy. You put a big holding the paddles up, you're holding the paddles up in the wind, it's really hard because the wind is blowing really hard on the third T-box.

Andrew Doud 4:01

So you're like by day three, you got like uh you're sore.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Right, but if you drop the paddle while the player's hitting, you forget about it.

Andrew Doud 4:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

And one girl did. Uh-huh. I forgot who the golfer was, but he gave her a look like fired.

Dave Rattiner 4:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:14

Like disgust.

Andrew Doud 4:16

And these are volunteers. Yeah, we're getting paid to do this. No. But you're happy to do it.

Steve Glick 4:22

What kind of training do you need? Did you did you get trained on how to do it?

SPEAKER_02 4:24

Obviously, upper shoulders, you know, some backs and lats, you know. No training. The guy goes, You ready to do your paddle work? There's a captain up there. Okay. There are like four captains on on. And basically the third tea box was assigned to Montauk because that's where I played most of my golf. So it was mostly people that came from Montauk Downs. Okay. That's cool. They're up there. And it was great. And you get lunch, they feed you every day. And it's um the nicest thing is there was um a volunteer booth where you can go in the morning, have a little breakfast, relax. And when you get a break, you can go back in there. It's air conditioned.

Dave Rattiner 4:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

Uh it's lovely. Wow.

Dave Rattiner 5:00

Golf

When A Pro Golfer Breaks Down

Dave Rattiner 5:01

is a big part of your personality.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

There was one guy, I'll never forget this. I'm not gonna name names. Okay, he was plus eleven on the second day, and he was playing the third hole, but the he's he teed off in the tenth hole to begin. So he was almost done. He had like six holes left. So plus eleven, he's out of it. Yeah. He gets up, he hits the ball out of bounds onto the national golf links, which is right next to the room. Is that bad? And then he takes away.

Andrew Doud 5:29

Yeah, sounds like me. That's golfing.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

Then he hits another ball about 300 yards, and 300 yards down to the left is where the latrine area is. Uh where the toilets are, and he hits it right.

Steve Glick 5:40

Oh no. Oh, poor guy.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

You got a free drop because that's um man-made. Poor guy. Wait. Then I see out of the corner. This is me golfing. Yeah. This is me. Out of the corner of my eye, about a minute later, I see this guy, the same guy, crouching down by a tree, crying.

Dave Rattiner 5:58

Just broken, right? He broke down. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:01

He's not like Scotty Scheffler.

Dave Rattiner 6:03

He's trying to make a living. Yeah. Poor guy.

SPEAKER_02 6:06

Obviously, he wasn't going to make any money on this. He paid money to get into the tournament. You know, people don't realize that.

Andrew Doud 6:12

Yeah. So you gotta tough game, man. If I let's just say I was good at golf and not a 100 golfer, and I wanted to like try to make the cut. You can't do it. You can do it, hey.

SPEAKER_02 6:23

If you're good. If you can, you can qualify for it. That's what's cool about it, is like it's possible. You know, you must open anybody can qualify for it. There are qualifying tournaments you gotta go through. Okay.

Dave Rattiner 6:34

I had a friend that like got pretty close. Yeah, you can you can you can do it.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

Rob, the guy that he's an instructor at Poxabug, which is a he made it three years ago. Yeah. Amazing.

Dave Rattiner 6:46

I remember reading about that. I remember one.

SPEAKER_02 6:49

That's it? Yeah. Oh my gosh. He's my instructor, and uh it was a major one in Montauk, didn't you? Yes, I did. Oh, three years ago.

Dave Rattiner 6:58

This guy's a winner over here.

Andrew Doud 6:59

All right. All right. Good stuff on golf. Yeah, it's like a lot of things. Let's talk a

Why Rentals Drive Hamptons Sales

Andrew Doud 7:03

little real estate. So um let's talk sales and rentals and the correlation between the two. Because, you know, before we got started, you said, look, you want to sell, you got to rent. Uh and so what's that about? Why how important are rentals when it comes to sales?

SPEAKER_02 7:18

Um, very important. Uh, because when I first started in the business, I I really didn't know that many people out here, so I concentrated on rentals.

Andrew Doud 7:26

Um I think a lot of people do, you know, it kind of gets started to get your feet wet.

SPEAKER_02 7:30

And I updated a ton of rentals. They were in the system, nobody had updated them. And I I guess my first three months doing in this business, I was on the phone 24-7 every day updating rentals. I wound up updating almost a thousand rentals. Because at the time there were a lot of open rentals. Yeah. Um and basically what I do is I meet when I get I get a rental done and it's time for the lease to start, I meet the renter at the house. We walk through the house, we look for new damages, I take pictures, take them a bottle of wine, a little beach bag, and get them settled in. At the end of the rental term, I then meet them again to go through the house, make sure there's no damages or anything like that. And then I talk to them, do you want to rent again next year, or are you thinking about buying, etc.? And they love that. And 70% of all my sales to date are to my ex-renters. And it's a lot of work, yeah, but it's worth it. And most agents don't do it.

Dave Rattiner 8:34

No. Yeah, you hear that a lot.

Steve Glick 8:36

Oh, I don't do rentals, and it's like Well, either they don't do rentals or they don't do rentals as sales. You should think of it that way. Yeah. Dave, it's either they don't do rentals or they don't follow up and and see through. Like help them welcome them into the rental or when they're leaving. You know, a lot of the times you say, All right, keeping in touch. We sign the lease, you know, you could pick up the cake, have fun, call me if you need anything. No, you know, it's like appreciate it. People appreciate it. It sounds like that just staying in contact and and helping them along the way is just um goes a long way. And they appreciate that, like you said.

SPEAKER_02 9:06

And I mean the hardest two days of the year is July 31st, and then August 1st, August rental starts.

Steve Glick 9:12

Yeah, we see those waves coming in. Now, are are people still renting for the season or is that is that I'm still doing a couple of rentals. Still doing some rentals. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 9:20

Yeah. I'm still getting inquiries from rentals as well.

Steve Glick 9:23

And what about for next season? Are you locking some up already? Starting to work on it right now. Wow. Doesn't stop.

Andrew Doud 9:29

Not if you want to be successful, doesn't stop. Um all right, so let's talk big picture

Weekly Market Numbers And Inventory

Andrew Doud 9:34

then. What do you got as far as the numbers for this week?

Steve Glick 9:36

Yeah, the uh this past week, 36 listings went into contract. Last year, 43, so it's a small decrease of 16%. But two years ago there were 27, so we're increase there of 33%. The breakdown of the 36 transactions, one over 20 million, one between 10 and 15 million, six between five and ten, ten between three and five, six between two and three, ten between one and two, and two under a million. Dollar volume was 152 million. Last year it was 180 million, so a decrease of 16%. And the dollar volume two years ago was 129 million, so an increase of 18%. But there are 47 new listings that came on in the market, so that's a that's a high. That's a lot of listings coming on in one week. That increased inventory by 11 listings and the breakdown of the 47 new listings. There was one over 100 million dollars that came on this past week. There was two over 20 million. 100 million? Yeah, it was a 165 million dollar listing came on. That's not bad. You should go for that. You should get that. Yeah, uh two over 20 million, one between 15 and 20 million, two between 10 and 15, 4 between 5 and 10, 10 between 3 and 5, 7 between 2 and 3, 17 between 1 and 2, and 3 under a million. However, the inventory is still at 1,773 total with 1,372 active listings and 401 in contracts. So even though there's a lot of new listings coming on, there's still a good amount coming off the market. And then inventory is still fluctuating up and down, but it's still um low inventory numbers.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

All right.

Steve Glick 11:09

What's it all mean to you?

SPEAKER_02 11:11

There's no inventory, no inventory.

Steve Glick 11:15

But there's plenty of rentals.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

Interesting.

Baseball Cards As High-Stakes Hobby

Andrew Doud 11:21

Um that's a little real estate. Now we're gonna divert again to baseball cards.

Steve Glick 11:28

Oh, yeah.

Andrew Doud 11:28

We're going a little all over the place, but I promise it at the beginning of the show. So uh tell me a little bit about this. We you trade baseball cards? I collect. He potentially has one of the best collections.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

I've been collecting since I'm a kid, and my mother never threw out my cards, so I have all my cards. I have sets going back to 1965. I have a room, a temperature control room built downstairs under lock and key. Um because I did have some cards stolen a few years ago. I I don't know, probably one of the workers that came in my house. Because when I my sets, I like to keep like the best cards and the sets in plastic on top of the box. You know, closed, but on top. Somebody knew they went in and they saw them and they took them out. Oh, that's unfortunate. They they took them from the tops, from the company tops. They forgot that it was Dunross and Fullyard. So my Cal Rickman Jr. rookie cards are safe and sound. You have a Cal Rick and Jr. rookie cards. Two of them, three of them from each company.

Dave Rattiner 12:33

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 12:33

Yeah. What's that valued at? Like, I mean, what it it depends on the the grading of it, but one of them is graded at 10, so it's probably worth about four or five thousand dollars.

Steve Glick 12:42

What's your most expensive card? Is that your most expensive card that you have?

SPEAKER_02 12:45

Probably that's it. I mean, my Otani card, which I'm now currently selling, I've listed it on eBay for $1,325. It's a red Cyberstat card. There's only 25 of them ever made. Mine is number seven of 25. So uh so my most expensive card? Yeah, we don't know yet. But it's probably gonna be Ms. Roski, who's the pitcher for the brewer is the guy that throws consistently over 100 miles an hour. I pulled out of a box set of the cards that I bought a few weeks ago, what's called a super rare card that is 50 made, and this thing right now, it's not even there's no price on it yet. But the guys I spoke to that are experts in this think it's probably gonna go between the 12 and 14,000. Wow. Wow. It grades a 10.

Andrew Doud 13:34

What's what's like the the oldest card that you have?

SPEAKER_02 13:37

My oldest card, it was uh it still is Sandy Koufax, 1960 Sandy Koufax, which I love.

Andrew Doud 13:44

And that's not like I mean, not obviously it's a special card, but like it's not like some kind of like rookie or limited edition or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

No, it was his third, I think fourth year card. Yeah, but it's it's beautiful, but it's cool. Yeah, it's really cool. Yeah, so I love it. It's great.

Andrew Doud 13:57

That's just a cool, I mean, you talk about you know what what people do when they're not.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

I mean, the whole thing has changed because now since they were they they put numbers on cards and stuff like that, yeah. It's like a hunt. So it's like playing a lotto.

Andrew Doud 14:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

Okay. I mean, a hobby box of cards right now is only six packs, ten cards each, believe it or not. And it's selling that box, just 60 cards, ready? You buy it in the store for $580. It's nuts. Now, if you go online, tops.com, there's a what's called a uh pre-order day. And you can go online, and that's how I got my two boxes. Instead of $528, it only cost me $260, but it's gone in a minute. So people with bots or whatever, you these are professional people buying these things up. Yeah, so you gotta get lucky. I did, I got lucky. And that Mizoraski card was in one of those. And then instantly, they're instantly worth money. Oh, yeah, instantly worth money. This one's I I'm my hand was shaking when I pulled it up. That's cool. That's cool. So I that was in the first box. So my wife, who doesn't really get involved with baseball cards, all of a sudden she's taking an interest, right? Yeah, right. I opened the second hobby box, she goes, Did you pull another one of those cards? I go, Lord, the odds of pulling those cards is so rare. Yeah, I I'm still shaking from it. And it really is very cool. That's neat. Yeah, it's like a treasure hunt. It's funny.

Dave Rattiner 15:16

Do you ever go to the uh the the card place in East? No, no, no. The in East Hampton, there's the Tom Brady thing. Oh, you are the first name base. They're like, Steve, what's up?

SPEAKER_02 15:26

Tom's like, Steve, couldn't see you. No, they call me Mr. Zellman, which is really funny. Yeah, right. Well, they're kids, you know, that run the store. They're great guys. That's awesome. They really know what they're doing, by the way. That's cool. That store is hugely successful. That's rare in retail these days. It's unbelievable. How successful that store is. I mean, there are fathers in there with their seven-year-old kids buying $10,000 boxes of cards. It's not me. If they do their homework. Yeah. They always ask how do you do your homework? Oh, yeah. So the kids are, you know, they're fishing for autographs.

Andrew Doud 15:57

Crazy. Of course. Crazy, crazy.

Dave Rattiner 15:59

That's

Weekend Events And Restaurant Pick

Dave Rattiner 16:00

great.

Andrew Doud 16:00

Um, all right, David, what do we got this weekend?

Dave Rattiner 16:03

Yeah, there's some cool things going on this weekend. Um, you have Sunset Music at the wine stand with Gordon Daniels and Golden Brass at Wolfur Estate Vineyards, Friday, August 14th at 5 p.m. That's right in Sagaponic. It's an absolutely wonderful time. You ever go to the wine stand? Yeah, it's the best. Yeah, yeah. So you can enjoy the wines and the ciders and the glasses, you get a glass bottle or a glass, um, and you can do that from 5 to 8 p.m. If you go all the way out to West Hampton Beach, I I this makes me think of you for some reason. There's an Eagles band. You're a big Eagles fan, aren't you?

Andrew Doud 16:44

Yeah, I mean like Eagles, the football team. The football team.

Dave Rattiner 16:47

Yeah, but you're not, aren't you also an Eagles band?

Andrew Doud 16:49

I like classic rock.

Dave Rattiner 16:51

I feel like I feel like you like the Eagles. I don't know why. But anyway, Eagle Mania is the name of the band, and it's a tribute band to the Eagles, and that's at the West Hampton Beach Performing Arts Center. That's on Sunday, August 16th at 8 p.m. And then we also have the uh this is a very uh famous Hamptons 5K run. We have the 31st annual Ellen's 5K run walk. Uh that's August 16th at 9 a.m. Uh begins at the Southampton Intermediate School. That's on Leland Lane. And this is the 31st year that they're raising money to support uh you know cure for cancer. This is the 31st year for breast cancer. So this is a great uh and very, very well-known run. There'll be a lot of people there, so you should go and check that out if you want to do that and get you know, work off some uh work off some of the calories you ate over the week. Um, we also like to ask people, our guests, their favorite restaurant. So, what's your favorite restaurant?

SPEAKER_02 17:54

By far the French dip at the East Hampton Grill.

Dave Rattiner 17:57

The French dip at the East Hampton Grill. That's fast. There you go.

Steve Glick 18:00

He knows it. French dip at the East Hampton Grill. Nothing else compares. Ah, nice. It makes me want that now. I like that. I usually get the French dip uh Bobby Vance, but no, not even close.

SPEAKER_02 18:11

Really? Not even close. Wow. Sorry, Bobby Vance. I love the that's good. So like I'm I'm excited.

Dave Rattiner 18:18

It's been a really good uh comments on that answer. All right, there you go. Good, great, good.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

All right, no hesitation.

Andrew Doud 18:26

I like it. Uh thank you for joining us. Thank you. Great stuff, great insight. Uh, good luck with the baseball collecting card hobby side hustle. And uh until next week, everybody. Have a great weekend. I'm Andrew Down. That is what's happening in the heavens.