With two major fires continuing to rage across the Los Angeles area, thousands of displaced residents are looking for housing. Immediately.
Top luxury realtor Dylan Eckhardt, whose clients include Justin Bieber and Rihanna, says he has received 36 calls in the past 18 hours from people whose homes in Malibu and Pacific Palisades have been reduced to ash. Displaced residents of Altadena are also scrambling to find housing on the other side of the city.
“‘I need a four-bedroom.’ ‘Get me to Newport.’ A lot of people are asking me for Orange County,” Eckhardt says. “It’s fucking utter chaos right now in the Palisades. People are riding dirt bikes around, trying to help friends and throw animals on their backs. It’s worse today than it was three days ago. And driving through Malibu is like Armageddon.”
Eckhardt represents 160 off-market houses spanning from Los Angeles and Orange County that he is putting on the market to meet the sudden demand. He is waiving his sizable commission for anyone who is directly affected by the fires. And it’s not just finding a place to rent or buy in the immediate aftermath of the blazes that’s an issue. After the fires die out, rebuilding will be a long and arduous process.
“It’s going to take us five, maybe eight to 12 years to rebuild, if that,” says Eckhardt, noting the area’s Kafka-esque permitting process, particularly in Malibu. “Before the fire, if you didn’t know somebody, you were looking at about 18 months to two years to get a permit to even redo a bedroom in your house. Now, we’re looking at like five years [before construction can even begin].”
On Friday, state and local officials vowed during a press briefing on the fire that there would be a massive effort to eliminate red tape to accelerate the region’s recovery. Nonetheless, in the near term, tens of thousands of residents are now unexpectedly hunting for new housing.
A Westside realtor who asked not to be named says she has been fielding back-to-back calls from clients affected by the fires. “They think they’re going to go back [after evacuating]. But they’re in shock,” the realtor said. “Tuesday night, they grabbed whatever they could grab. Wednesday, people were in shock. They couldn’t comprehend it. And now, people are frantically and maniacally trying to find a place to live not knowing the future.”
The clients, who run the gamut from Hollywood writers to executives, some with young families, are asking for apartments over houses and nowhere near fire-prone areas that have long been desirable, such as Malibu and Pacific Palisades. “Even if it’s safe, they’ll say, ‘I don’t want a house,’” the realtor adds. “They want a condo or an apartment. It’s absolute lunacy out there.”
The fires, which have killed at least 11 people so far, hit during a tight time for the real estate market, with inventory already low as given that potential sellers were holding off on putting their properties on the market as they wait to see whether interest rates rise or fall in the coming months.
With the fires doing the most damage in the posh Pacific Palisades and the more economically diverse community of Altadena, north of Pasadena, both the uber-wealthy and rank-and-file Angelenos have been hard hit. An estimated 80-100 IATSE members have lost their homes, including many in Altadena. Los Angeles rents had already become unsustainably high especially for entertainment workers affected by last year’s strikes and production slowdown.
The list of notable names impacted continues to grow and includes Anthony Hopkins, Billy Crystal, Paris Hilton, Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag, Milo Ventimiglia, Anna Faris, James Woods, Diane Warren, Steve Guttenberg, Mel Gibson, Tina Knowles, Miles Teller, Cobie Smulders, Melissa Rivers, Jeff Bridges, Eugene Levy, and Adam Brody and Leighton Meester.
While Eckhardt’s home in Malibu’s Point Dume neighborhood has been spared so far, he lost more than $63 million worth of exclusive listings that went up in flames over the past three days. He expects that number to grow.
“No one is going to ever insure houses again here like that,” he adds. “No one’s going to insure a house in Malibu for $15 million again.”
Some homeowners may not be able to recoup the value of their now-destroyed homes. In July, State Farm dropped coverage for 72,000 houses and apartments in California, including 1,600 in Pacific Palisades alone. On Friday, Ricardo Lara, the state’s insurance commissioner, vowed that the state would impose a one-year moratorium to prevent homeowners insurance cancellations and non-renewals in the fire-scarred areas.
Those whose homes escaped the flames but fled because they are in an evacuation area are also contending with looting. Eckhardt has advised his clients to refrain from posting on social media about their ordeals.
“I’m calling all my A-list clients — every NBA guy, football player, celebrity — and telling them, ‘Yo stupid. Don’t post your fucking house again because the fire is three miles away. It’s not gonna hit your house.’ But ‘You’ve evacuated?’ You just told the whole fucking world you’re evacuated with your fucking MVP trophies, your fucking things in the house, your World Series rings [left unattended]. It’s like the Bling Ring all over again.”
In a sign that demand for high-end listings will quickly outpace supply, Eckhardt hosted showings on Thursday for four rental properties. The price tag on the homes ranges from $15,000 to $45,000 a month. Some 55 people viewed the properties.
“We gotta just start relocating people and having people just start over,” he says. “Shit sucks. The pain is gonna come. The sorrow and the grief is gonna happen. But we gotta just do the next right thing.”
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