‘Cash offers only’: After L.A. fires, scorched lots are selling fast

Fri, March 14, 2025 at 2:19 PM UTC

9 min read

ALTADENA, California - Hugo Dalinger knew he couldn’t go back. Not after a wall of flames swallowed his bright-white Altadena home during the January firestorm that took out most of his town. But he needed money to start over, so he reached out to a friend and veteran real estate agent for help.

Ramiro Rivas was skeptical. He grew up around Altadena and has sold hundreds of properties in 21 years - but a fire-scarred lot was new. He put the 10,500 square-foot ash-filled parcel up for sale on Feb. 3, pitching it as an “incredible canvas for a custom-built estate.”

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“Opportunities like this where privacy, natural beauty, and limitless potential converge are truly rare,” he wrote, with no mention of the disaster. “Property sold as-is. Cash offers only.”

He was surprised how fast offers came in. In nine days, Rivas closed Altadena’s first post-fire residential land sale. The Dalingers now had $603,000 for a down payment on a smaller home in nearby Pasadena. Soon after, Rivas listed more lots.

“This was very traumatic to me,” said Dalinger, a doctor in his 70s who helps care for several of 12 grandchildren. “I couldn’t see myself rebuilding … there would be too many bad memories.”

There has been a frenetic rush to buy and sell scorched lots since wildfires leveled thousands of homes in Altadena and Pacific Palisades two months ago, surprising longtime local real estate agents and experts. The pace, and some of the price tags, have exceeded expectations - even in one of the country’s hottest housing markets. The damage hasn’t deterred sales; it has accelerated them.

With toxic debris still to be cleared from many of the 13,000 burned properties, more than 160 vacant and destroyed plots have hit the market, according to ATTOM, a firm that tracks property sales.

Dissonant real estate listings promise blank canvases for dream homes alongside photos of wreckage. For every available lot, one agent said there are at least 10 interested buyers - offers mostly from developers and builders. And like catastrophes before them, the fires have also prompted a swarm of opportunists - small-time land speculators and large-scale developers peppering owners with texts, calls and letters taped to their properties offering to buy the land in cash.

Nearly all lots sold have exceeded their asking prices, even if for less than the pre-fire value, real estate data shows. Land in the Palisades, one of the city’s wealthiest enclaves, is selling at high prices, with one piece topping $3 million. In Altadena, a more racially-diverse, working-and-middle class community, advocates worry owners are taking offers that are too low. And as residents reckon with the reality they may need to sell, many wonder what it may mean for their families - and the fate of their communities.

“People are getting shamed for selling, but the bottom line is people need money and want to get the most for their property,” Rivas said. “Every little cent counts right now.”

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‘There’s not a mass exodus’

From the day fires sparked on Jan. 7 to the end of February, 163 lots were listed in Altadena and the Palisades, compared to five during the same period in each of the prior two years, according to ATTOM data.

At least 17 have sold - 14 in Altadena and three in the Palisades - nearly all for tens of thousands more than the initial asking price, separate real estate data shows.

And more hit the market every day.

In Altadena, some lots seem to be selling for substantially less than they would have before the fires, said Mark Karlan, a real estate finance professor at UCLA.

“Something is wrong with the Altadena prices, especially for how big those lots are,” he said after reviewing listings. And with many in financial distress, that can lure predatory buyers, he added.

In one contract reviewed by The Washington Post, a real estate investor offered a couple $400,000 in cash for their land. They had purchased the Altadena house that once stood there for $1.3 million in 2022.

Still, nearly all of the sold lots in Altadena fetched prices above asking. One listed for $350,000 has more than 11 offers, with two over $500,000. Another listed for $400,000 has eight offers up to $545,000.

In the Palisades, meanwhile, Anthony Marguleas was bracing for land values to plummet by up to 50 percent.

That hasn’t yet happened.

In fact, in one of the Palisades’ most exclusive sections, values appear to have appreciated by more than 10 percent, said Marguleas, the founder of Amalfi Estates real estate agency.

“There’s not a mass exodus,” said Marguleas, who lost his own home there. “Property values are staying incredibly strong.”

All three Palisades sales have exceeded asking price by more than $100,000. Each has gone for over $1 million.

Karlan, who also lost his Palisades home, said prices there have been shocking, some close to the value of an intact house.

Marguleas expects up to 1,000 burned homes will eventually be listed. David Berg, another longtime real estate agent, suspects many homeowners may wait to see how initial sales go before deciding what to do.

But some can’t afford to wait.

Retirees on a fixed income and residents with little or no insurance are more likely to sell out of desperation, said José Loya, an urban planning professor at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs, an effort to recoup whatever money they can.

“They’re trying to sell their homes because they’re in a very vulnerable financial situation,” Loya said.

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‘The ones with all the resources’

When he heard the price, Steven Lamb sat up straight against the back of his mother’s antique blue couch. There’s no way he was going to sell his land, even if it was full of charred trees and burned orange metal, for that.

A broker on the phone had just offered Lamb $462,000 in cash for his 8,900 square-foot plot. The lifelong Altadena resident and former developer was thinking about selling, but estimated the plot beneath the remains of his redwood craftsman should be worth at least $800,000.

“I mean, that’s just insane,” Lamb replied, indignant. He pressed on: “Don’t you know what empty lots were selling for before the fire?”

“Yeah,” the broker replied. “I think you’re going to see a new standard of compensation.”

At 67, and now living with his sick, elderly mother, he and his wife have been debating whether a long and costly rebuild is worth it. But if they sold, who would the land go to?

A company called AIE Realty, short for Always In Escrow, told Lamb in a letter it was a local real estate team “working with a serious buyer” to pay cash for their lot - toxic debris and all. Curious, Lamb picked up the phone.

But minutes into the call, he’d heard enough.

“These guys are sharks,” he concluded. “They are going to make a fortune.”

Founded in 2023, the company is acquiring torched parcels for Ocean Development Inc., a conglomerate that mostly buys properties around south Los Angeles to develop low-income housing.

One draw for the companies such as AIE is the county’s “like for like” rule, meant to cut red tape after the fires to fast-track rebuilding homes nearly as they were. AIE is planning on buying a few dozen lots, anything that “mathematically makes sense,” said an agent who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Other developers may be coming in too. An Arizona-based realtor said he’s been in contact with a Northern California builder who wants to buy about 300 lots. The company did not respond to The Post’s request for comment. Smaller builders are also eyeing the land, realtors say.

Rivas wants his community to bounce back and knows “developers get a bad rap.” But he tells people, “we need the developers” to bring Altadena’s population back, to help surviving businesses stay alive.

“They are the ones with all the resources to build back fastest,” he said.

Sue Kohl, president of the Pacific Palisades Community Council, understands why people fear big developers “buying a bunch of lots and building houses next to each other that all look alike.”

“They want the culture of the town to remain the same,” said Kohl, a real estate agent whose Palisades home burned. But “no one is going to be able to have it just like it was.”

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‘A fork in the road’

Los Angeles was already one of the country’s most expensive housing markets. But in the recent land rush, questions have emerged about opportunity and accessibility after a disaster: What kind of place emerges from the ruins of the old one? Who can afford to rebuild and continue to live there?

Disasters are typically an inflection point for a community’s identity, said Loya of UCLA. Some are abandoned and spiral into disinvestment, while others become more expensive, driven by the high cost of rebuilding and insuring homes in combustible areas - a gentrification by fire.

“A neighborhood usually does not return to what it was,” Loya said. “It is a fork in the road.”

In Altadena, where the rate of Black homeownership is double the national average, advocates are especially worried rapid development will further displace people of color.

“The entire town could be taken from us twice,” said Courage Escamilla, an organizer with Altadena Not For Sale, a group helping underinsured residents hold onto property.

It’s one of many groups formed to support neighbors in financial trouble, and to keep land in local hands. Altadena Not For Sale wants to start land trusts to preserve affordable housing and is pushing for a temporary moratorium on the sale of multiple lots in the same area to a single company or investor.

About forty miles west, start-up founder Dustin Bramell launched a directory called Protect the Palisades after losing his home. The group matches residents looking to buy with those wanting to sell. The goal is to connect “person to person” and guard against “outside parties who have no vested interest in the community,” he said.

Nearly 1,000 people have registered, more than 8 in 10 of them hopeful buyers.

Lamb, a former Altadena council member of 20 years, thinks it’s an important effort - keeping land local. He just knows it’s a fight they may not win.

“We chose and worked very hard and made a lot of sacrifices to live in the community that was Altadena,” Lamb said. “After the fight is over, where will I be? If I don’t have Altadena, what am I doing? What am I fighting for?”

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Kevin Crowe contributed to this report.

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