First property with home destroyed by Eaton Fire hits market, sells within days
By Nicole Comstock, Dean Fioresi
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ALTADENA, California (KCAL, KCBS) — The first Altadena property with a home that was destroyed by the Eaton Fire in January has officially sold, just days after hitting the market. The sale comes amongst ongoing talks throughout the community that their neighborhoods are not for sale.
Brock Harris, the agent who listed the home says that they had more than 100 interested buyers as soon as it was listed for sale, which he attributes to the fact that it’s a flat, buildable lot in Los Angeles County — quite the rarity.
“Everyone here has three options: they can start trying to rebuild their house, they can wait and do nothing, or they can sell the lot and get on with their lives,” Harris said.
He listed the Calaveras Street property, still full of ash and debris, for $449,000 last week. It sold for well over asking price, Harris said.
“Phone blew up. Twenty, thirty calls per day,” he said. “But, I think we priced it well, we ended up with a dozen offers. It was a very competitive situation, mostly from professional home builders.”
The woman who owned the property said she didn’t want to wait years to rebuild because she was renting the property out as an investment.
“There’s this whole thing about, like, are developers going to ruin Altadena? Is someone gonna build it for themselves, or will an evil homebuilder buy it?,” Harris said. “But every call I got from people wanting to build homes, they want to build in Altadena and they want to build Altadena style homes.”
He estimates that the city’s comeback will likely be a mixture of families already in the area and professionals rebuilding at different paces.
It’s just this, that has families like the Munoz’z concerned with the future of their city.
“It was a lot of family homes, it really sucks,” said Jeanette Munoz, whose home was destroyed when the Eaton Fire erupted on Jan. 7, destroying thousands of homes and businesses. “I am worried about it, but I hope they stick it out and rebuild stronger than ever.”
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