In Altadena and Pacific Palisades, burned lots are hitting the market

The first vacant lot in Altadena went up for sale in late January. The listing promised “great opportunity to build” after the Eaton fire destroyed the home previously on the site.

A few weeks later came half a dozen more listings. Now the floodgates appear open.

“There is so many to choose from,” said Jeremy Hardy, a real estate agent with Craig Estates & Fine Properties.

Two months after fires that tore through Los Angeles County and destroyed or seriously damaged more than 12,000 homes, property owners in Altadena and Pacific Palisades are increasingly selling their burned lots rather than undertake a time-consuming and costly rebuilding process.

As of Monday morning, there were 49 burned lots for sale in Pacific Palisades, according to Zillow. In Altadena, there were 32.

Real estate agents said their clients who chose to sell, or are debating it, are doing so for a variety of reasons. Some doubt they have the money to rebuild. Others are elderly and don’t want their last years consumed by construction. A few had owned rental properties and decided keeping them was not worth the hassle.

Many — if not most — of the people interested in buying burned lots have been developers, according to agents.

It’s perhaps not surprising. Vacant land is typically bought with cash. Construction is time consuming, stressful and expensive in normal times, let alone in a disaster zone with toxic waste.

A lot for sale in the 400 block of East Marigold Street in Altadena.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

“Building a house is one of the most complex and highly regulated activities you possibly can engage in,” said Brock Harris, a Keller Williams real estate agent who had the first burned lot listing in Altadena, which sold to a builder.

The developer influx could help communities build back quicker. But it’s also raising fears about gentrification and whether longtime owners are getting a fair price. Those concerns are particularly high in middle-class Altadena where residents have proclaimed that “Altadena is not for sale” through signs and rallies.

At least eight burned lots have been sold in Altadena, with most selling in the $500,000 to $600,000 range, according to Zillow.

Lisa Haussler, a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker who lost her Altadena home in the fire, estimates those lots are selling for around two-thirds of what the land would have fetched before the fire. Haussler said that while she understands why people want to sell now, she’s recommending they pause — at least until the cleanup is further underway and it may be easier to attract higher bids.

She said the fact developers are buying shows they believe there’s money to be made.

“For our clients, we are really counseling to take a beat and let’s see what happens,” said Haussler, who plans to rebuild her house.

In the years before the fires, Altadena home prices soared, which boosted existing homeowners’ wealth but also priced out many people who grew up here.

A lot for sale in the 2900 block of Emerson Way in Altadena.

(Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times)

Research suggests home values could escalate further. Disaster recovery experts say it’s usually people of more modest means who hit a wall in the rebuilding process and end up selling their lots to developers and high-income individuals who build pricier homes.

In the process, fire victims can see their wealth stripped if they sell too low, especially if they were underinsured.

Heavenly Hughes, who grew up in Altadena, said that given the nation’s income disparities, she has particular concern about the town’s long-standing Black community, which was already dwindling because of pre-fire gentrification and saw its homes severely damaged or destroyed at higher rates than other groups during the blaze.

“Will we, as a Black community, be wiped out?” said Hughes, who runs the Black-focused mutual aid organization My Tribe Rise.

Nicole Lambrou, an urban planning professor at Cal Poly Pomona, studied rebuilding efforts in Paradise, Calif., where the Camp fire destroyed more than 80% of the town’s homes in 2018.

She and her colleagues from UC Merced and UCLA found that five years after the destruction, incomes, education levels and home prices were all higher.

“Everyone was telling us that there is just a new demographic of people moving in,” Lambrou said.

The process would start with lot sales.

Berkshire Hathaway agent Kurt Frejlach said he had about four offers — all from developers — on a nearly 9,000-square-foot lot that he listed for $625,000.

He said his client’s mom had moved out of the property before the fires into an assisted living facility and the family decided to sell after the house burned and “before the market is inundated with lots.”

The lot sold last month for $680,000. Frejlach said he isn’t sure exactly what the winning bidder will build, but he estimated they’d spend $600,000 to build a house and sell it for $1.7 million, about $300,000 more than what Zillow estimated the now-burned house was worth before the fires.

Lambrou said policies that limit absentee homeownership could blunt gentrification, but some agents said developers play a needed role, because many homeowners might not have the resources to rebuild.

“You don’t want to live in a neighborhood where you just have empty land everywhere,” said Ramiro Rivas, a real estate agent with the Agency who is also a member of the Altadena Town and Country Club, which burned down. “The real estate community, we are not trying to sell properties from under people — people are personally reaching out, because they need that help.”

Hughes of My Tribe Rise said she’s working to help the community in a different way.

She said she is trying to match fire victims with nonprofits that can offer funding to help people keep their land. She’s also trying to match people who really need to sell with people from Altadena who want to buy.

“We want them to have options,” Hughes said, “to let them know this is available.”