Two large fires continue to burn across the Los Angeles area, leaving thousands of evacuated residents looking for housing. immediately.
Dylan Eckhardt, a top luxury real estate agent whose clients include Justin Bieber and Rihanna, said he has received 36 calls in the past 18 hours from people whose homes in Malibu and the Pacific Palisades have burned down. Displaced residents of Altadena are also scrambling to find housing on the other side of the city.
“‘We need four bedrooms.’ ‘Take me to Newport.’ A lot of people ask me about Orange County,” Eckhardt says. “The Palisades is in utter chaos right now. People are riding around on dirt bikes, trying to help friends and throw animals on their backs. Today is worse than it was three days ago. Driving through Malibu is Armageddon. It’s like.
Mr. Eckhardt represents 160 off-market homes across Los Angeles and Orange County that he has put on the market to meet sudden demand. He is waiving large amounts of compensation for those directly affected by the fire. And the problem isn’t just finding a place to rent or buy immediately after a fire. Once the fire is extinguished, rebuilding will be a long and difficult process.
“If that happens, it will take five years to rebuild, maybe eight to 12 years,” Eckhardt said, pointing specifically to the area’s Kafkaesque permitting process in Malibu. “Before the fire, if you didn’t know someone, it would take you anywhere from 18 months to two years to get permission to redo a bedroom in your house. Now it’s going to take five years (before construction starts). I think it will take some time.”
On Friday, state and local officials vowed at a news conference about the fires to make a major effort to cut through bureaucracy to speed up the region’s recovery. Nevertheless, in the short term, tens of thousands of residents are currently unexpectedly looking for new housing.
A Westside real estate agent, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he was fielding a flurry of calls from customers affected by the fire. “They are thinking of going back (after evacuation). But they are in shock,” the real estate agent said. “On Tuesday night, they grabbed whatever they could. Wednesday, people were in shock. They didn’t understand it. And now they’re desperate and frantic, not knowing what the future holds. I’m trying to find a place to live.”
The clientele ranges from Hollywood writers to executives, some of them young families, but they’re looking for apartments rather than homes, not near long-desired fire-prone areas like Malibu or the Pacific Palisades. . “Even if it was safe, people would say, ‘I don’t want a house,'” the real estate agent added. “They want condos or apartments. That’s absolute madness.”
The fire, which has killed at least 11 people so far, comes at a time when the real estate market is tight, with potential sellers holding off on putting their properties on the market as they wait to see if there is interest. and inventory is already running low. Will interest rates rise or fall in the coming months?
The fires hit hardest in the upscale Pacific Palisades and Altadena, a more economically diverse area north of Pasadena, where both the ultra-wealthy and ordinary people have been hit hard. An estimated 80 to 100 IATSE members were left homeless, including those in Altadena. Rent in Los Angeles was already unsustainably high, especially for entertainment workers who were affected by last year’s strikes and production slowdowns.
The list of celebrities affected continues to grow, including Anthony Hopkins, Billy Crystal, Paris Hilton, Spencer Pratt, Heidi Montag, Milo Ventimiglia, Anna Faris, James Woods, and Diane Warren. , Steve Guttenberg, Mel Gibson, Tina Knowles, Miles Teller, Cobie Smulders, Melissa Rivers, Jeff Bridges, Eugene Levy, Adam Brody and Leighton Meester.
Eckhardt’s home in Malibu’s Point Dume neighborhood has so far escaped damage, but the flames have destroyed him over the past three days, costing him $63 million worth of luxury property. He expects that number to rise further.
“No one here would re-insure such a home,” he added. “No one is going to insure their house in Malibu for $15 million anymore.”
Some homeowners may not be able to recover the value of their destroyed homes. In July, State Farm discontinued insurance coverage for 72,000 homes and apartments in California, including 1,600 in Pacific Palisades alone. On Friday, state Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara vowed the state would institute a one-year grace period to prevent homeowners insurance from being canceled or not renewed in areas affected by the fires.
People whose homes survived the fire but were evacuated because they are in evacuation zones are also battling looting. Eckhardt advised his clients to refrain from posting about their ordeals on social media.
“I call all my A-list clients, NBA players, football players, celebrities, and say, ‘Hey, idiot. There’s a fire three miles away, so never post your house again. Don’t do that. It won’t hit your house.’ But, ‘Did you evacuate? I just told the whole world that I evacuated the fucking MVP trophy, all the shit in my house, and my World Series ring. It’s like it’s gone.”
In a sign that demand for luxury properties is quickly outstripping supply, Eckhardt hosted viewings of four rental properties on Thursday. Home prices range from $15,000 to $45,000 per month. Approximately 55 people viewed the property.
“You have to redeploy people and start over,” he says. “It’s fucking awful. There’s going to be pain. There’s going to be sadness and sadness. But we have to do the next right thing.”
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