Los Angeles open houses take on a strange feel

Rosa Garcia, a real estate agent, greeted a young woman and her family when she arrived Saturday at 1:00 pm at an open house in Pasadena, Calif.

Ms. Garcia, 50, who has worked in real estate for 24 years, has a special interest in a three-bedroom home listed for $2.175 million. Her nephew bought it last year as an investment, and borrowed money to renovate the kitchen and two and a half bathrooms.

When they were preparing to flip the house, they couldn’t predict the terrible fire that burned Los Angeles, threatened their property and sent the real estate market soaring. Pasadena’s neighbor Altadena, a community where at least 16 people died and more than 7,000 homes were destroyed by the Eaton fire. But Pasadena, a beautiful city at the foot of the San Gabriel mountains, escaped the fire unscathed.

So as Lisa Chen and her young children walked around the house on Saturday, Ms. Garcia was sure to notice that the white stucco house high on a hill overlooking a steep cliff had a new fireproof roof and was burning well inside. in the fire.

Ms. Chen, 32, a stay-at-home parent, told a reporter that she had been house hunting for a year. Before the fire, he made it a priority to live in an area with good schools. Safety is now also at the top of his list, he says, and life in the mountains is second to none. “The apartment is better,” he said as he left.

This weekend, the open-air rituals were generally of poor quality, as the smoke lingered. Buyers opened closets, surveyed bedrooms and expressed concern about how much the homeowner would have to pay for fire insurance, if they could afford it, given the extent of the damage. They expressed concern about buying a house on the hill, even in some sheltered areas, wondering if they need to reconsider the risks.

At an open house for a $1.19 million two-bedroom home on S. Orange Grove Blvd., along the Rose Bowl parade route, it sat on Dana Lance was a luxury bench and reviewed the past two weeks. For four days, he and his wife, Judith Porter, kept their car full of all their belongings as it caught fire seven miles from their home on a winding, wooded road at the top of Mt. Washington in Los Angeles, the couple. “The dangers of fire were always on his mind,” Mr Lance said of his wife. “But he wants out now.”

Their long-term goal of getting off the hill and into the shelter took on a new dimension.

“We think we can handle Mother Nature, but we can’t,” said Mr. Lance, 66, a businessman who, on Thursday, bid on another Pasadena home, but lost.

Before the fire, Neha Mehta, 36, who rents in Pasadena, was looking at houses in Altadena. Many of them were probably destroyed by the fire, he said. Now, he’s reassessing what he’ll look at, focusing on the area south of I-210, the freeway that bisects Pasadena and could provide another barrier to the fire. “It’s very safe for me now,” he said of the immediate neighborhood.

Last weekend, half of the people who visited the townhouse were displaced by the fire, according to Laurie Turner, who, along with her husband, David Turner, is the listing agent. . “The clothes didn’t match, there was a pet with him, they were shocked,” he said. A couple asked if they could buy the house with all the furniture it had been furnished. Mrs. Turner said yes. The couple made an offer. But on Saturday, no one affected by the fire visited the town hall.

A mile away on Woodcliffe Road, Ms. Garcia mopped the floor and wiped down the counter before the open house, assuring her nephew, Shannon Horton, 32, that the house would be sold. The house went on the market the day the Palisades fire started. That night, Mr. Horton watched on his phone as his security camera captured ash falling like snow on the building. “SimpliSafe is my TV for a while,” Mr Horton said. “Will I still have a house when I wake up?”

The house and surrounding area burned unscathed, although an inch of ash had to be power-washed from the yard and driveway. Ms. Garcia said she was surprised the building wasn’t full of smoke and ash as well. Relieved that his investment was worthless, Mr. Horton asked himself, “Does anyone want to live here?”

Ms. Garcia is more optimistic. “It’s for sale,” he said, “I can’t see it without it.”

However, in the first hour, only Mrs. Chen and her little child came.

Mrs. Garcia’s enthusiasm began to wane. He had expected that there would be cars parked on the narrow road, and visitors waiting for the door to open. Maybe Sunday would be better, he thought. If no offers come in by midweek, they can hold another open house, he said. “That’s no bueno,” he said, standing in the kitchen, leaning on the counter. “But we’ll see how it goes.”

Amancai Biraben contributed to the report.