The Palisades Fire was still careening up the California coast when a Miami broker took to X to sound the alarm: the vultures were circling.
The agent, Hugo Cardona, said his good friend had lost his Pacific Palisades home to the flames. All that remained was rubble and a charred door frame, a photo showed.
An opportunist still found a way to come knocking.
The house was worth $4.5 million; the owner had been offered a scant $750,000 for the land, Cardona claimed. The friend, Ramses Torres, identified himself in the comments, posting a video of his room going up in flames.
“What a crazy crazy time that’s being lived,” he wrote.
With major wildfires still raging across Los Angeles County, 10,000 properties destroyed, 10 people dead and projections both numbers will rise, enterprising investors and brokers are trolling the market for deals, posts on Reddit and X claim.
Details are scant. Typically, posters have shared only that they have been contacted.
“I got a msg tonight if I’m interested selling my house. Absolutel[y] ludicrous,” the Reddit user own_wilsons_nose wrote on a thread started by an industry insider.
The insider, writing under the name Sea_Key_, said on Wednesday he had “already seen disgusting comments from brokers and investors who are calling this a ‘big opportunity.’”
“When you’re contacted by these vultures put them on blast,” the Redditor added.
None of the posters specified who had contacted them, despite questions from other social media users. Neither Cardona, Torres nor the Reddit users returned requests for comment.
The schemes seem to be a classic case of “disaster capitalism,” or a way to profiteer off natural or man-made disasters. Brokers swoop in, offering cents on the dollar for charred land. The homeowners, who either did not have insurance or fear their insurance won’t pay, jumps at the money, trading deed for cash. And the developer, eventually, rebuilds, sells and pockets the difference.
Such opportunists targeted Maui residents as they recovered from the deadly 2023 wildfires. Agents messaged homeowners despite a state proclamation banning those bids, USA Today reported.
Claims of predation in Los Angeles have become entangled with conspiracy theories that the fires were purposely set in a “land grab” by either the “wealthy elite” or the state or city government ahead of the 2028 Summer Olympics.
There is currently no proof of arson. A man was taken in for questioning on suspicion of arson in connection with the Kenneth Fire, then arrested. But the Los Angeles Police Department Friday morning said they had not found sufficient evidence to charge him with arson.
As for the Olympics, the games will take place at venues around L.A., including SoFi Stadium, the Lakers’ Crypto.com Arena and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. One event — golf — is set to take place in Pacific Palisades at a country club that survived the Palisades Fire, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Notably, the city vowed to rely on existing venues to host the Olympics, as stadiums built specifically for the games typically fall into disrepair after the closing ceremony, NBC Bay Area reported this summer.
Most of the commenters chiming in on the claims of profiteering developers sided with the original posters and decried those trying to make a buck off the devastation.
“Lowballing homeowners in the middle of a crisis is next level scum move,” a retail broker from Texas replied to Cardona’s tweet.
But a minority took a more pragmatic stance. Sure, the bids were low; but wasn’t something for a plot in a veritable wasteland better than nothing?
“Doesn’t sound like a bad offer the way [the Palisades] currently sit[s],” the X user @BCbarnes replied to Cardona’s post.
“The home might be 4.5m but the land itself is probably worth about a million,” another user tacked on.
“And when you look at all the damage done and the long list of things that need to be done before anything can be rebuilt on that land I’d say 750k is pretty good,” the user added. “Hopefully he has insurance.”
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