The deadly wildfires that cut a path of destruction through Los Angeles and its suburbs in January have turned the local housing market on its head, causing home sales to skyrocket in spared communities located near the hardest-hit neighborhoods.
The latest available data from Realtor.com®, based on multiple listing service figures, indicates that home sales in cities and towns adjacent to the ravaged enclave of Pacific Palisades, CA, where nearly 6,000 homes were destroyed by the fires, saw sales pick up more than 25% in January and February compared with a year ago.
The unincorporated seaside community of Marina Del Rey saw the most dramatic year-over-year surge in sales, at more than 88%.
Located just northwest of Marina Del Rey, Culver City, best known as a hub of film and TV production and as the home of Sony Pictures Studios, experienced a massive 77% jump in home sales compared with the same period a year ago.
Santa Monica, the seaside city of 90,000 residents famous for its picturesque pier and amusement park, has seen its housing market dramatically altered in the wake of the fires, with sales soaring 68.5% year over year.
“The housing market data around the areas impacted by the Eaton and Palisades fires suggests that displaced families are looking for a new place to call home,” says Realtor.com senior economic research analyst Hannah Jones.
(Realtor.com)
Not surprisingly, closings in areas that bore the brunt of the devastating wildfires have plummeted in January and February.
The wealthy, star-studded Pacific Palisades saw the sharpest drop in home sales of more than 78% compared with a year ago, while the Pasadena suburb of Altadena, where more than 6,000 homes were turned into piles of debris, experienced a 66.7% drop in sales.
Other high-priced areas that were affected by January’s fires, including Malibu and Brentwood, saw home sales decrease by 48.4% and 27.7%, respectfully.
At the same time, inventory levels have shot up in Pacific Palisades and Altadena, mostly thanks to the high number of burned lots hitting the market.
For comparison, in the first three months of 2024, just three listings in Altadena and 12 listings in Pacific Palisades were land listings.
(Realtor.com)
So far in the first quarter of 2025, Altadena has had 82 active land listings and Pacific Palisades has had 106, accounting for 58% and 49% of listings year to date, respectively.
Notably, most of these land listings that are currently for sale are for fire-scorched vacant lots.
“Home sales have picked up significantly in areas near Altadena and Pacific Palisades, but have fallen off inside the affected areas,” says Jones. “Both of these locales have seen a pickup in land listings as homeowners look to sell their property and start fresh elsewhere.”
And there has been no shortage of enterprising house hunters willing to snap up burned plots of land in a highly desirable area.
(Realtor.com)
Less than a month after the catastrophic fires, a 9,932-square-foot parcel of land in Pacific Palisades that was once home to a four-bedroom, three-bathroom home was sold for well over the asking price of $999,000.
Similarly, a 9,109-square-foot vacant lot in Altadena was sold in early February for $550,000, more than $100,000 above the asking price, in an all-cash deal.
A recent report from the UCLA Anderson Forecast put the estimated property and capital damage from the Palisades and Eaton fires at between $95 billion and $164 billion, with insured losses potentially reaching $75 billion.
