Post fire rebuilding

[DarkHorseRacing]

I bet they call this a FEMA incident and the federal government will foot the bill. No way CA pays out without federal help.

My last go around with fire, FEMA was only helping when your insurance wasn't. At the time I didn't even want to file a claim ( and then get dropped or rates hiked ) so FEMA wasn't an option. I had to go through the Small Busines Administration (SBA) to get a low rate loan to do repairs. Had to pay that back, btw. No loan forgiveness from the Feds either, and they put a lien on your home, too.

 

[arch stanton]

They keep saying everyone is leaving California because U hauls leave California at a higher rate than they come in, but I think the people leaving are just on a lower budget than those moving in because somebody is buying the homes sold and apartments don’t have a huge vacancy problem

 

[TPC]

Honest question. Say my house is completely gone. It was a 2 million dollar house. I rebuild and the county assessment is 3.5 million now. Do I have to pay property tax on the new cost?

You then may be able to get the same benefit as those that move and keep their accessment or be able to claim on other plans that give breaks.

 

[regor]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1877207054105886836

 

[clarence]

Upside:

The places that are burning are the Democratic Party’s ATM machine.

Anarchotyranny Runs Out of Water

Astonishingly devastating fires are burning mostly unchecked in Los Angeles, destroying whole neighborhoods, and see if you can spot the problem in this Yahoo News update I found in my inbox this morning:

chrisbray.substack.com

 

[clarence]

Upside:

Palisades Fire Incinerates Future Career of Mayor Karen Bass, Gavin Newsom's Presidential Aspirations

California literally turned into a red state overnight.

legalinsurrection.com

 

[brgrcru]

I bet they call this a FEMA incident and the federal government will foot the bill. No way CA pays out without federal help.

FEMA is broke
Money printing will be none stop

 

[ltbaney1]

What about a chimney?

my understanding is one load bearing wall. is the requirment to not be considered "new" construction. my old man did a ton of these when i was working with him. very common to leave one garage wall standing.

 

[boatnam2]

They keep saying everyone is leaving California because U hauls leave California at a higher rate than they come in, but I think the people leaving are just on a lower budget than those moving in because somebody is buying the homes sold and apartments don’t have a huge vacancy problem

Thats all bullshit, hell they are building more units than you can count in Carson, which isn't Beverly hills, I doubt they are building them for nothing. When i strat to see empty homes or dumps selling for less than a million I will believe it.

 

[Sportin' Wood]

I hope this terrible disaster provides a wake up call for people. Being prepared, does not mean you wear a tinfoil hat.

Help is not coming.

Leadership Matters.

 

[Mandelon]

Make building permits as hard to get as welfare.

 

[Taboma]

From what my agent told me, if you a wall intact, your property taxes would not be reassessed.
Complete burn down, reassessed for the amount the house is worth after the rebuild.

Things could be different now...

Your agent told you this in regards to rebuilding after a loss due to a wildfire ?
Following my neighborhood losing 23 homes due to a wildfire, we were required to remove everything right down to the dirt. Then, depending on the nature of your lot and soil, conform to the requirements of a soils engineer. In most cases they wanted the lot dug down and recompacted back up in lifts, tested and retested lift by lift prior to signing off.
In our case, on a sloped DG lot previously built in 1974, this required earthwork and new footings down to bedrock and much larger foundation walls, this work was extensive and expensive. One neighbor I'm aware was allowed to retain a garage slab, but only after extensive testing and engineer approval.

The only way a home was reassessed following a Fire Loss rebuild in San Diego County was if the house was sold to a new buyer and the original owner had moved elsewhere. I'm aware of two such cases I'm familiar with, the owners moved away and the properties were sold as bare lots.

 

[NicPaus]

Make building permits as hard to get as welfare.

You must shop at Crenshaw lumber. Been posted in the hardware section for 20 years +.

 

[NicPaus]

Thats all bullshit, hell they are building more units than you can count in Carson, which isn't Beverly hills, I doubt they are building them for nothing. When i strat to see empty homes or dumps selling for less than a million I will believe it.

Between 223rd and Vermont there is 2k going up. And next to in n out another few hundred. I know the building inspector Kumar. Just finished one with him. Sad thing is. Most have no parking spots. Bike storage rooms instead. They fill up before completion.

 

[evantwheeler]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1877207054105886836

" We're going to have to restructure the whole thing because we can't have nine angry lesbians controlling everything that goes on in Malibu, the Palisades and Santa monica."

 

[MissB]

and the fires are even out yes, or have containment. It's making another run this morning. The aftermath will be all this and more.... super sad.

 

[coolchange]

A couple of my thoughts.

That acrid smell of a burning, toxic waste dump may never leave that area
All the smart wholesalers should’ve been on the phone yesterday buying every inch of rebar, lumber, Toilets, etc. any kind of standard building material. It will make millionaires

The Out of state contractors and scam artist that are already loading up their shit to come here and scam People is going to be off the hook.
If you’re looking for a job in the trades, your future is secure. After the Northridge earthquake, he created a whole little sub economy in the valley. Guys are buying boats motorhomes Harleys like crazy. Guys that I knew in the trade during that time had lost their houses because construction Was in Extreme low spot, And couple of said if they could’ve held on for just another couple of weeks until after the earthquake, they would’ve been fine.

Once again, the landscape of Los Angeles has changed forever. That little seafood place in Malibu will never be seen again the beachside restaurant forget it, The cruise down Sunset or Topanga to PCH on a Sunday, never be the same.
LA got what it voted for. At least the fire department has three lesbian DEI top officials who said their first priority was systemic racism.

 

[NicPaus]

A couple of my thoughts.

That acrid smell of a burning, toxic waste dump may never leave that area
All the smart wholesalers should’ve been on the phone yesterday buying every inch of rebar, lumber, Toilets, etc. any kind of standard building material. It will make millionaires

The Out of state contractors and scam artist that are already loading up their shit to come here and scam People is going to be off the hook.
If you’re looking for a job in the trades, your future is secure. After the Northridge earthquake, he created a whole little sub economy in the valley. Guys are buying boats motorhomes Harleys like crazy. Guys that I knew in the trade during that time had lost their houses because construction Was in Extreme low spot, And couple of said if they could’ve held on for just another couple of weeks until after the earthquake, they would’ve been fine.

Once again, the landscape of Los Angeles has changed forever. That little seafood place in Malibu will never be seen again the beachside restaurant forget it, The cruise down Sunset or Topanga to PCH on a Sunday, never be the same.
LA got what it voted for. At least the fire department has three lesbian DEI top officials who said their first priority was systemic racism.

You better have a huge warehouse with cheap rent. The building dept will be overwhelmed quickly most those builds take 18 months to approve without a backlog.

I was just at a job. He does hvac in the palisades on a regular basis. 2-3 year builds for thos mansions once approved.

There will definitely be a shortage of tradesmen in 2 years when the rebuild is underway. I drove up to Westlake village last night. And thought about all the work. It's only 30 minutes to the palisades with no traffic from my house. With traffic hour to hour and a half. But finding the subs to do what my crew can't will be tough. My framer would be overwhelmed with just 2 going at once if over 6k sq ft each. I would buy a 5th wheel and drop on site. Could probably take on 3. But my local business would be on hold for 2 years.

 

[rightytighty]

You better have a huge warehouse with cheap rent. The building dept will be overwhelmed quickly most those builds take 18 months to approve without a backlog.

I was just at a job. He does hvac in the palisades on a regular basis. 2-3 year builds for thos mansions once approved.

There will definitely be a shortage of tradesmen in 2 years when the rebuild is underway. I drove up to Westlake village last night. And thought about all the work. It's only 30 minutes to the palisades with no traffic from my house. With traffic hour to hour and a half. But finding the subs to do what my crew can't will be tough. My framer would be overwhelmed with just 2 going at once if over 6k sq ft each. I would buy a 5th wheel and drop on site. Could probably take on 3. But my local business would be on hold for 2 years.

When you finally do get permits and attempting to factor in the inflation that disaster brings (supply and demand), what do you guess the cost/SF will be on a 4/3/2500 home? On Slab VS Raised foundation?

Scared to even gonna consider whatever new code upgrades they may require...

 

[Sportin' Wood]

It's been a lot of years, but way back when I was a plumbing contractor we did a massive amount of work in San Bernardino following either the Old Fire or the Paradise Fire, I don't remember which. We did some in North San Diego as well, nearly the same story, but SB was the worst.

It was a shit show.

Lots of scammers

There was an infill builder that bought a bunch of lots and did it smart. We built 10-12 houses production style.

It was a mess working up there, lot's of theft, lots of conflicting companies that did not get along, lots of labor poaching, and it was difficult to get paid after busting ass to get stuff built as quick as possible. I recall inspections got done with a bit of corruption and "favor". Tools would get stolen if you turned your back.

I also used to do rehab work and it was easier to do a full rebuild than try and restore a house that was left untouched by the fires because smoke damage. Just bulldoze everything, over excavate, re-compact and start new.

I can't imagine how difficult it will be to even clean up this mess under California regulations.

The more I hear interviews with people in California impacted by the fire, the less empathy I have. I can't believe some of the comments.

 

[NicPaus]

When you finally do get permits and attempting to factor in the inflation that disaster brings (supply and demand), what do you guess the cost/SF will be on a 4/3/2500 home? On Slab VS Raised foundation?

Scared to even gonna consider whatever new code upgrades they may require...

The builders I know that do design and build in the palisades are $12-1500 a sq ft.

Just talked with one of the Manhattan Beach builders now at lowes. He won't even try and go there. He said he is in it for 3.5-4 to sell for 5. But you need the 4 to get it done. That's the hard part.

 

[D19]

We/ I tear down and rebuilt all year long every year for a living . You get to keep your value on existing square footage. Additional footage, decks, garage space etc. is taxed / added on the original "improvements" part of the assessment based on quality level of construction which sucks, but is honestly less than it really costs per sq foot with the factors they use. Land portion of the assessment stays the same.

Do you have to pay another round of impact fees for building your house, or do you get a waiver since the previous one burned down?

I’m expecting rents in these areas to surge. People will need temporary housing close to their jobs, schools, and other essential places.

It’s also tough to imagine how kids will get back into school after a campus burns down. There aren’t vacant, identical buildings just sitting around ready to be used.

 

[Flyinbowtie]

The logistics are going to be unreal. Can you imagine the simple act of cleaning up and sorting the debris for disposal?
Once sorted, where the hell are ya gonna haul it to dump it?
If a guy had a huge empty warehouse filling it with cosntruction materials might be a sharp move. The cost of lumber and other building materials in the western US is gonna skyrocket once the rebuild begins...that is assuming, of course, that people do in fact rebuild.

 

[NicPaus]

My River neighbor spent months in NorCal hauling loads of contaminated dirt with his super 10 after the Oroville fire. Had to be brought to a certain site. Then hauled off with semis. The clean up will be huge money on this. All before the rebuild can even start.

I saw flames from the 405 last night at Venice Blvd. And the hillside was on fire to the right as I left Westlake village. About a 20 Mile span. Thousands of homes still close to the fire. Hopefully it's under control. The roads were closed on the beach route so I couldn't take that home to see how bad it was.

 

[rightytighty]

The builders I know that do design and build in the palisades are $12-1500 a sq ft.

Just talked with one of the Manhattan Beach builders now at lowes. He won't even try and go there. He said he is in it for 3.5-4 to sell for 5. But you need the 4 to get it done. That's the hard part.

Wow! That is unbelievable ( but I believe you). I would have guessed under half of that. People are going to have limits problems...

 

[NicPaus]

Wow! That is unbelievable ( but I believe you). I would have guessed under half of that. People are going to have limits problems...

That's high end builds. But Palisades is what it is. 15 years ago my Friends Grandparents house sold for 3 million. It was a beautiful home he owned the Normandie casino. They bulldozed it and built a custom.

The $1200 a ft includes architectural and engineering. I have a old customer that does it and a friend that is a superintendent for a builder that does this. They build a very nice custom home for that price. I have been in numerous ones while they build. They get plans done and approved quick and handle everything.

I have another friend that just finished one in Santa Monica. 3 year build. Cost plus 17%. On a major remodel. His cost was $800 a sq ft on existing build.

I am building low end stuff in comparison for $400 a sq ft. Not including city fees, architect or engineering.

 

[rightytighty]

My River neighbor spent months in NorCal hauling loads of contaminated dirt with his super 10 after the Oroville fire. Had to be brought to a certain site. Then hauled off with semis. The clean up will be huge money on this. All before the rebuild can even start.

I saw flames from the 405 last night at Venice Blvd. And the hillside was on fire to the right as I left Westlake village. About a 20 Mile span. Thousands of homes still close to the fire. Hopefully it's under control. The roads were closed on the beach route so I couldn't take that home to see how bad it was.

I dealt with over 100 Large losses between the Paradise Fires and Santa Rosa fires when I was working for a Carrier. It was heart breaking when I'd heard the lead and other contaminates had leached into many of the wells in the Paradise area and they were talking about not issuing permits until City Water could be installed... . Good luck in the Foothills, spread out like that... I figured it would become a ghost town. Glad they figured something out.

I burned out and took the "handshake" and have been running insurance repairs for a local contractor for the past 3.5 years. Way better, but still happy to retire in less than a year.

 

[napanutt]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1877207054105886836

I was just getting ready to post this. Glad I checked.

 

[coolchange]

I know the owner of canoga rebar. During the northridge earthquake he was on the phone ordering every piece of rebar in the country. Joke is it was still shaking and he was on the phone.

 

[NicPaus]

I was just getting ready to post this. Glad I checked.

I just watched it. 5 minutes after getting off the phone with my realtor son. He is going on his own to be a architect. Working on the first one that involves tearing down the existing house. I almost sounded like Adam when describing the process he has to go through to get it approved. The customers are great. I have worked for them before. But the city holy fuck he is ready to learn a life lesson.

I have 1 with permits in hand for his Mom. Took 27 months to get approval from LA city and the coastal commission for a 800 sq ft ADU in the ghetto part of San pedro. I put the new approach in for the driveway years ago. Only driveway on the block and it was 1000% easier to get the approval than the build itself. Every neighbor asked me how the hell they gave approval for a driveway. Whole area is alley access.

 

[DC-88]

Do you have to pay another round of impact fees for building your house, or do you get a waiver since the previous one burned down?

I’m expecting rents in these areas to surge. People will need temporary housing close to their jobs, schools, and other essential places.

It’s also tough to imagine how kids will get back into school after a campus burns down. There aren’t vacant, identical buildings just sitting around ready to be used.

All mine are elective tear downs so plan check/ building fees are 100% / school fees only on added footage apply but the re assessment principles are similar. No way a fire victim losing a 2,500 ft house assessed at 400k would get hit with it getting re assessed at 2M for rebuilding it at 2,750 sq ft. , he'd just have to add on 250 square feet times I would guess 250-300 bucks a square foot which in our county is about 1.1% property tax additional on that 250 amount plus the original old assessments and bonds in place. I think with disasters fees are often waived to extents depending on the municipality. I tore down a couple here in our town where we let Cal Fire do burn drills on them with the local crew the day before demo back in 2015-16'.

 

[stoker2001]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1877207054105886836

@War Canoe

 

[Cole Trickle]

Wow! That is unbelievable ( but I believe you). I would have guessed under half of that. People are going to have limits problems...

A lot of those house are original nothing special from the 40's-60's and wont cost anywhere near 1k+ a foot to rebuild as standard builders grade with upgraded kitchens and bathrooms unless they were tear downs with huge $$$ invested. If someone spent that kind of $$$ remodeling hopefully they were smart enough to increase there dwelling limits or they are screwed.

I wonder what a scraped lot would sell for? I know the area is spendy but who knows what's going to happen with such a large chunk of the city being destroyed.

 

[rightytighty]

A lot of those house are original nothing special from the 40's-60's and wont cost anywhere near 1k+ a foot to rebuild as standard builders grade with upgraded kitchens and bathrooms unless they were tear downs with huge $$$ invested. If someone spent that kind of $$$ remodeling hopefully they were smart enough to increase there dwelling limits or they are screwed.

I wonder what a scraped lot would sell for? I know the area is spendy but who knows what's going to happen with such a large chunk of the city being destroyed.

I agree that the dirt/ location is the primary determiner of resale cost.

I also know the Cats like this have stupid construction cost inflation. I wouldnt be surprised by anything.

In the Paradise and Santa Rosa Fires, It was common thatContractors were interviewing the insured’s to determine who they’d work for. Talk about tails wagging the dog!

 

[beerrun]

A friend and I were talking this morning about the clean up side and haul off if you could get in with a couple insurance companies you could make bank

 

[rightytighty]

If its like others in Nor Cal, the city will jump in with their preferred brother-in law , I mean Vendor and they’ll bring in big dozers. They do it for what ever the insurance policy and Fema will pay and those without insurance are freebies.

They still make stoopid good money. I wrote dozens of $50k checks.

The dozers were on site 4-7 hours.

 

[Gonefishin5555]

I have a cousin with a house in Hidden Hills and a while back maybe 7-8 years ago there was a Malibu fire and they rented their home for $30K a month to a fire victim and they moved into their ventura beach home and retired living off the monthly rent. I'm sure there will be plenty of fire victims willing to pay something like that to stay within a close radius to their old home. People nearby will gladly cash in and rent their house out and leave the state or move to a lower cost locale. I have a client that does fire/flood restoration I bet he is salivating or whatever the word is.

 

[rrrr]

A friend and I were talking this morning about the clean up side and haul off if you could get in with a couple insurance companies you could make bank

I bought four hydraulic dump trailers, trucks, a small loader, and a couple of 5th wheel trailers and sent a crew to the New Orleans area after Katrina. My 24 year old nephew ran the crew. They worked in the parishes south of NO.

I think I made around $50K when it was all done and the stuff was sold off six months later. We kept one of the 5th wheels to camp at Texas Motor Speedway and do some limited camping around N Texas and Oklahoma.

 

[boatnam2]

Between 223rd and Vermont there is 2k going up. And next to in n out another few hundred. I know the building inspector Kumar. Just finished one with him. Sad thing is. Most have no parking spots. Bike storage rooms instead. They fill up before completion.

or elevators i heard.

 

[TPC]

Like when Joseph Gobbles announced after the 8th Air Force flattened Berlin:
Karen Bass first words ”We Will Rebuild!”

 

[riverroyal]

9000 plus structures. Then include Olympics.
Poor city management. Not enough inspectors or building dept employees. This is going to be ugly and criminal on multiple levels.

 

[Done-it-again]

Yes that is definetly a factor. I know my insurance will probably increase by 50% as we’re in a fire zone. Shit I’m lucky if I will even have insurance.

Hope you are right, but I’ll plan on it not being renewed.

 

[Done-it-again]

We are construction workers, you can never plan too soon.

They haul off debris guys will make a fortune

Wonder how many new “home” builders will pop up.

 

[Sportin' Wood]

9000 plus structures. Then include Olympics.
Poor city management. Not enough inspectors or building dept employees. This is going to be ugly and criminal on multiple levels.

This.

 

[boatpi]

This may have been posted already, but I know for a fact, there was a lot past, not too many years ago, that if your house is destroyed by fire, and you rebuild an essentially the same footprint, you will receive the same assessment not a new assessment because of the improvements built on the land continues where it left off and of course it could be reassessed when there’s no house on it that’s been destroyed and then it’ll come back to the previous number. This of course doesn’t count for the continual 3% per year clock. It always ticks on property taxes in California. The biggest issue is if you’re in the coastal zone this is an unknown best thing that can occur , Get rid of Newsom and elect Rick Caruso.

 

[clarence]

VDH weighs in on the LA fires:​

​

“It's something like a DEI Green New Deal hydrogen bomb — the alarming symptoms of a society gone mad."​

​

An incisive, two-minute breakdown of the political and ideological issues that led to this disaster:​

​

“It was a total systems collapse from the idea of not spending money on irrigation, storage, water, fire prevention and forest management, a viable insurance industry, a DEI hierarchy, you put it all together and it's something like a DEI Green New Deal hydrogen bomb."​

​

"Gavin Newsom was fiddling, he's almost Nero Newsom. And this has been something that is just unimaginable."​

​

"The systems breakdown. And to finish, what we're seeing in California is a state with 40 million people. And yet the people who run it feel that it should return to a 19th century pastoral condition. They are de-civilizing the state and de-industrializing the state and de-farming the state. But they're not telling the 40 million people that their lifestyles will have to revert back to the 19th century, when you had no protection from fire."​

​

"You didn't have enough water in California. You didn't have enough power. You didn't pump oil. So we are deliberately making these decisions not to develop energy, not to develop a timber industry, not to protect the insurance industry, not to protect houses and property. And we're doing it in almost a purely nihilistic fashion."​

​

"And Karen Bass should resign. She came to the airport back from Africa. She had nothing to say. She was confronted at the airport. Why were you in Africa? Why did you cut the fire department? They cut the fire department by almost $18 million. They gave fire protective equipment to Ukraine's first responders. And she had nothing to say. She had nothing to say because she couldn't say anything."​

​

"I don't want to be too pessimistic or bleak tonight, but this is one of the most alarming symptoms of a society gone mad."​

​

"And if this continues, and if this were to spread to other states, we would become a third world country if we're not in parts already."​

https://x.com/WesternLensman

x.com

x.com

 

[Sportin' Wood]

Leadership Matters.

We all get to see the meltdown on display live, I hope we learn from it.

My guess is that heaping piles of toxic waste will still be sitting idle years from now. Paralyzed by indecision and bureaucracy.

Leadership; would be solving for housing all these displaced people today and figuring out how to dispose the ashes of a once great paradise. They should bury the failed practices along side the ruins. Some people will not recover from this tragic event, and while some might feel they are not to blame, than who for the power of a vote? They got exactly what they wanted. It's a FN shame, and worse, it can happen again tomorrow in any of our population centers.

I'm thankful we got out. Help is not coming.

 

[COCA COLA COWBOY]

I can guarantee you that conglomerates are already calling, emailing, cold calling and physically mailing property owners to buy that land right now. I don't envision single family homes replacing all the areas that were burnt. I believe a good portion will be revised for high density. California and the democrats want high density everywhere and not single family homes. Think about property taxes....on an acre of land you have 3-8 units at best. You can build high density condos on an acre of land and get 4-6X those units generating a higher amount of property taxes which somehow some of it ends up in someones pocket.

 

[Orange Juice]

I can guarantee you that conglomerates are already calling, emailing, cold calling and physically mailing property owners to buy that land right now. I don't envision single family homes replacing all the areas that were burnt. I believe a good portion will be revised for high density. California and the democrats want high density everywhere and not single family homes. Think about property taxes....on an acre of land you have 3-8 units at best. You can build high density condos on an acre of land and get 4-6X those units generating a higher amount of property taxes which somehow some of it ends up in someones pocket.

I have a feeling the insurance companies are going to buy out the homeowner at its original value before the fire. And total the home, and resale the land at a better time.

 

[sprintcvx]

Will they allow permits for these to be rebuilt?

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1877706679925473699