Displaced Los Angeles homeowners face price gouging after wildfires

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Los Angeles: Jay Gulberg bought a five-bedroom, 4,800-square-foot (446-square-meter) home in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Pacific Palisades in June.

Six months later, he moved home, one of the estimated 5,000 Palisades destroyed or destroyed in the fire. When he and his real estate agent began looking for a temporary home big enough to accommodate a family of five, they were hit with another shock — a sudden increase in rental prices.

A Beverly Hills rental home that was listed for $14,000 a month suddenly jumped $4,000 overnight — a nearly 29 percent increase in prices that the listing agent told Gilberg’s realtor attributed to “supply and demand.” Reflected.

“There are really good people who are compassionate, compassionate, compassionate, and they want to do something to help,” Gulberg said of the disaster and its aftermath. “And then there are others who … smell an opportunity to take advantage, and that’s what I encountered.”

Across the region, thousands of people like Gulberg, who have been displaced by wildfires, are experiencing sticker shock. The Los Angeles Tenants Union, a volunteer group that advocates for affordable housing, identified more than 500 property listings where monthly rental fees suddenly jumped — in some cases, more than doubled.

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order on Sunday that seeks to curb predatory pricing on essential goods and services, including housing. The order makes it illegal to increase prices by more than 10 percent immediately before a declaration of emergency.

“Even though it’s illegal, we know that many landlords will try to take advantage of people’s frustration and get rid of it anyway,” said Tony Carfilo, an organizer with the tenants’ union, adding That even a 10 percent rent increase “may be impossible.” , both for those who lost everything and for the rest of the city’s tenants who were already struggling to get by.

‘exploitation, hunting’

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said his office has received hundreds of reports of price gouging and has launched multiple investigations. “It’s just unthinkable behavior during a time when people need the exact opposite of victimization, exploitation, victimization. They need help and healing and support,” Buonta said at a news conference Thursday.

He urged the public to send screenshots, text messages, emails or other evidence to help prosecutors build their case. Gulberg’s real estate agent Lori Goldsmith criticized the gown, saying she walked away from a longtime client who sought to take advantage. On other people’s misfortune.

“It’s so wrong,” Goldsmith said. “These people have lost all memory. People with young children have lost their loved ones who slept with them every night and felt like a security blanket wrapped around them.

County Supervisor Lindsay Horvath, whose district includes the entire Palisades fire, said she takes the issue of rising rents and housing prices “very seriously.” From anybody who would prey on them in a moment like that,” Horvath told Reuters outside the FEMA Disaster Recovery Center in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

People displaced by wildfires are struggling. Holocaust survivor Renee Weitzer, 87, lost the Sunset Mesa home she shared with her 88-year-old husband, Ed. They escaped the approaching forest fire with their medicine, some necessary papers, their dog and a change of clothes, thinking they would return home quickly.

Instead, they’ve spent more than a week living out of a hotel room, trying to find a house to rent. He said competition with other tenants has been tough. The Weitzers offered to pay $14,000 a month in rent for a house listed at $8,000 — with a year’s rent to pay — but still lost.

“We’ve lost every home,” Renee Weitzer said. “And not only that, when you apply with the application, you have to pay off your credit check.” The Weitzers plan to move into a nephew’s single-bedroom apartment in West Hollywood on Friday, while they work through the insurance claims process and decide their next move.

“It’s going to take some time,” Weitzer said. “Whether we can ever rebuild is questionable given our age, because it will take years to fix it….I don’t think we will be able to rebuild.