Liam Dillon

The AG alleges that this real estate agent raised the price on a rental home by 38%, which was, according to the AG, in violation of state law that says you can't raise prices after a natural disaster by more than 10%.

You know, you have 11,000 or more homes that have been destroyed in these two major fires in Los Angeles. That means tens of thousands of people who could be looking for immediate housing. And what we've been finding in the market is reports of bidding wars and reports of, you know, frankly, landlords taking advantage of needy folks and raising prices on their rental units.

And so there's been a lot of pressure on the attorney general.

And I think, you know, as much as one individual prosecution, you know, may be a drop in the bucket for the circumstances that are going on. I think he hopes there will be a deterrent effect for some of the sort of the bad actors that are out there.

Well, I think in the first place, when you go up there now and look at these areas now, I mean, post-apocalyptic is really what it looks like. Burnout cars, charred trees. The only thing left standing in many of these homes are like remnants of brick chimneys.

This is like a toxic waste site, these two areas. I mean, in the air, you have lead, asbestos. I mean, I saw a photo of someone posted of their bike totally vaporized, right? Doesn't exist anymore. And that, you know, the metals from that go into the air. So you have these heavy metals that have been measured miles downwind from the fires of

Ammunition, propane tanks, pesticides, car batteries, really bad stuff. And so I think this first challenge that you have is clearing out this toxic area.

And that, you know, caused a lot of consternation from people who want to try to rebuild their homes, obviously much faster than that.

That estimate's now been revised to a year, but still a really long time just for this sort of first stage of the rebuilding effort.

Right. So there's a lot of questions and challenges about the role of the federal government, particularly under the Trump administration and congressional leaders as well, tying aid to changes in unrelated California policy.

But these sorts of strings, you know, may well function as a potential concern for how quickly and how comprehensively some of the rebuilding efforts may go.

So California Governor Gavin Newsom, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, the County Board of Supervisors, all of these groups and individuals have passed rules trying to cut regulations that would block or slow down rebuilding.

And, you know, these rules or these waivers, you know, get rid of or at least attempt to various permitting and environmental rules, particularly for homeowners who would like to kind of rebuild their house exactly as it was before or slightly larger. Another question when it comes to the rebuilding effort is, you know, many of these homes built

a half century ago or a century ago, today's fire codes in California are some of the strictest fire codes in the country for new builds. In some cases, that may make rebuilding more expensive, but that could make these houses, you know, much safer to live in.

And I think it's still unclear exactly under what kind of fire code or fire regime or building code that people are going to either want or need to rebuild their houses to. And of course, that affects the cost of it and whether in some cases they'll actually rebuild.

No, and that's just one of the issues, I think, what you're finding in the immediate aftermath of these fires is kind of insane bidding wars. I mean, 30 families we've reported looking through one rental home in over a 10-minute period, right? What? Also, very widespread reports of price gouging.

So there is a California state law that says you cannot raise advertised rents more than 10% above what they were before a natural disaster certainly includes these fires. And so the state attorney general, Rob Bonta, has tried to sort of marshal an effort to deal with this.

He's encouraged people to report examples, sent warning letters to more than 650 landlords and hotel operators around Southern California. And he's even, at this point, criminally charged two people, real estate agents, for violating, allegedly violating these price gouging laws. And he sort of hopes these efforts will have at least a deterrent effect on what's been going on in the market.

And you could see videos on social media that people were posting in the days after the fire.

People videoing themselves going on Zillow, finding an example of a listing that increased its rent by more than 10 percent, telling people how to report them. And there was even one group of activists led by the L.A. Tenants Union, which has crowdsourced a list that came up with more than 1,300 possible examples of rent gouging, again, in this just sort of few weeks since this fire.

So I think it's really variable in these wildfire responses in California, even within California, but also around the country. I mean, you look at the recent fire in Maui and there have been reports that have come out that only after 18 months, only three homes have been rebuilt.

A closer example you referenced in Malibu, there was a fire in 2018 that destroyed roughly 400 homes in Malibu and more in the surrounding area. But less than half of them in Malibu have been rebuilt and we're six years on. But you also have some stories of things getting done faster.

You know, there was a big fire in Northern California wine country, a city called Santa Rosa in 2017, 3,000 homes burned. And then 80% was rebuilt within three years. And so it can be really circumstantial in terms of, you know, what happens where and why. You know, in Santa Rosa, for instance, the neighborhood that came back the quickest was in Flatland.

and more middle class, and so easier and cheaper rebuilds than what happened in the richer neighborhoods, actually, in Santa Rosa.

So I think a lot. I mean, the president has brought that up. I just met with the Olympic people, and they're all set to do a real job.

He enlisted the head of the LA 2028 effort as one of the key fundraisers for raising money, private dollars, to help rebuild Los Angeles.

And so these events, not just the Olympics in 2028, but we have World Cup events in LA in 2026. Super Bowl is coming to LA again. And so these mega events are at the least kind of putting timelines on things that absent them may not exist for rebuilding efforts. And so at a base level, people are saying LA is going to be showcased in not just nationally, but worldwide.

in many events over the coming years. And you want every building effort that shows that resiliency and that recovery to show the world that you can do it. And I think that is certainly a challenge given the timeline here that folks are looking at and facing.