The Brief

The ash hadn’t yet settled on thousands of destroyed homes when eagle-eyed tenant advocates started noticing the massive rent increases posted on a popular real estate website.

Within days of the historic fires in Los Angeles County, advocates began tracking listings for rental housing on Zillow that raised asking rents far above the 10% limit under California’s law banning post-disaster price gouging.

Now, after weeks of combing through listings (more below on the methodology), a group of volunteer rent gouging investigators has released their analysis, which they say is evidence of widespread illegal activity.

The study’s findings

Calling themselves The Rent Brigade, the group released a study Monday with their findings:

• Between Jan. 7 and Jan. 18, a total of 1,343 listings on Zillow appear to have violated the state’s price gouging ban.
• Those listings appear to have collectively sought to illegally overcharge tenants by $7.7 million per month, or $92.4 million per year.
• Rent hikes outside of legal limits were steeper on the lower end of L.A.’s housing market. The bottom quartile of listings by price saw a 46% median rent increase compared with a 27% increase in the top quartile. [Keep in mind that 10% is the post-disaster cap.]
• ZIP codes in areas including West Hollywood, Malibu and Venice had the most listings that appear to be over legal limits. But lower-income neighborhoods like Koreatown and Vermont Square also had high numbers of listings.
• Of the 1,343 listings analyzed, the study’s authors said Compass had 58 listings that appear to exceed legal increases, the most of any single real estate brokerage.

In her day job, Chelsea Kirk is a policy director with Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, an L.A. tenant rights nonprofit. She said she independently started this effort to track rent gouging by launching a crowd-sourced online spreadsheet.

“For lack of a better word, it became viral,” she said.

One alarming conclusion from analyzing all this data, Kirk said, is that more dramatic rent hikes have been happening on traditionally lower-priced housing.

“One of the most surprising things was seeing how widespread this is, not just in affluent areas,” Kirk said.

How the study came about

The Rent Brigade is a new independent collective made up of tenant advocates, web programmers, housing researchers and ordinary Angelenos. Those involved in the effort say they naturally gravitated toward working together after posts about alleged rent gouging flooded social media in the days after the fires.

Lauren Harper said they got involved after seeing an Instagram post by Kirk about her efforts to build a crowd-sourced rent gouging spreadsheet.

“I messaged her and said, ‘Hey, I think we can scrape that data,’” Harper said. “I got very quickly swept into this whole project.”

Initially, the group relied on user submissions to collect data on listings, looking for rentals where rates were increased above legal limits. By Jan. 15, tech savvy volunteers with The Rent Brigade had built a tool to systematically scrape data from Zillow listings in L.A. County.

Kirk said more than 150 volunteers have now contributed to this work.

“I've been fielding a lot of questions about who's responsible for this spreadsheet,” Kirk said. “We're just a group of people. But what connects us is that we're all Angelenos and we're really pissed off about what we're seeing in terms of rent gouging being rampant across the city in the wake of the wildfires. And we're committed to doing something about it.”

How the data was gathered

Monday’s study combines user submissions that have been filtered along with that scraped data to conclude that 1,343 listings appear to have broken the state’s price gouging law in one of two ways.

• Either the listings had increased their pre-fire asking rents by more than 10% in the days after the fires
• Or they newly came on the market after the fires at more than 160% of the area’s Fair Market Rent as determined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

The study found 442 listings that increased pre-existing rents by more than 10% after the fires. But the majority (901 listings) were new listings that violated the Fair Market Rent threshold.

“There’s a question about all of these empty listings that are suddenly coming onto the market,” Harper said. “We're really interested in using this data set for further questions about vacancy rates in Los Angeles and getting a better picture of what's happening in the rental market.”

The study’s limitations 

The study comes with some important caveats. Without a detailed investigation of each listing, it’s impossible to be certain that they all violated the law. Zillow users can sometimes misclassify or inaccurately input data for their listings, the study’s authors note.

In response to LAist’s questions about the study, Zillow representatives said they have already taken down many listings that appear to have illegally raised rents.

In an emailed statement, a company spokesperson said, “We believe it is essential for housing providers to follow local housing rules, including consumer protections against price gouging during and following a natural disaster, and we are providing resources to help them understand their responsibilities.”

LAist reached out to Compass to ask about the study’s findings, but we have not yet received a response.

Anne Russell, president of the Greater Los Angeles Realtors Association, said in an email to LAist, "Our association fields calls every day from our members with questions about the price gouging law to make sure that they are complying with both the letter and the spirit of the law. Realtors have a duty under the law and the Realtor code of ethics to not partake in rent gouging, and we would encourage anyone who feels that they are encountering price gouging in the market to report it to the Attorney General or the relevant authorities.”

What’s next for anti-rent gouging efforts

Prosecutors have started enforcement of the state’s price gouging laws.

Last week, California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed criminal charges against an L.A.-area real estate agent over alleged rent gouging for a La Cañada Flintridge home, allegations the agent strongly denied. The listing at the center of that case was on The Rent Brigade’s spreadsheet. Bonta has said more investigations are in the works.

Kirk said it’s not clear that threats of enforcement are deterring landlords and agents. Even after prosecutors pledged to crack down, the study finds that listings appearing to break the law grew, with the most of any single day posted on Jan. 16 — more than a week after the fires broke out.

“I kind of expected that it would be curbed — that we would see it kind of taper off,” Kirk said. “But I'm actually feeling like people are learning, oh, I can do this.”

The L.A. City Council voted Wednesday to study how large property buyers may be preventing Angelenos from becoming homeowners.

The vote follows a housing department study released in October that found large landlords, like property management companies and investment firms, owned a growing share of L.A. properties.

Rapid property buys by these organizations may lead to residents being displaced and limit opportunities for prospective homebuyers, the report states.

The new study approved this week will attempt to weigh how much added risk large property owners’ businesses are placing on tenants, homeowners and small landlords.

President Donald Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom have proposed regulating housing purchases by institutional investors — a group of the very largest corporate landlords.

“It’s shameful that we allow private equity firms in Manhattan to become some of the biggest landlords in many of our cities,” Newsom said at his State of the State address in January.

Trump issued an executive order in January to limit institutional investors’ ability to buy single-family homes.

L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez pushed for both housing department studies, saying she hopes the City Council will use the research to make policy that helps first-time homebuyers and mom-and-pop landlords to build generational wealth.

“Mass consolidation and monopolization” of L.A. housing stock puts the first attempt at home ownership out of reach for many young adults and families, she said at Wednesday’s meeting.

More on the October report

The Los Angeles Housing Department found that corporations and other large organizations owned a growing share of L.A.’s housing stock from 2018 to 2023.

The biggest change in ownership was the large organizations’ share of two- to four-unit buildings in the city, which increased by 29% over the six years studied. The report raised concerns that these organizations are targeting relatively small buildings that are often associated with small landlords.

When it comes to single family-homes, more than 1-in- properties was found to be sold to an organization and not an individual buyer over the six years studied.

The department also noted that there is some evidence behind concerns that “large corporate landlords may be associated with more evictions, more habitability violations, and overall higher levels of housing insecurity for renters.”

The report listed three companies that each agreed to pay out millions of dollars in recent years after facing allegations of unlawful practices as landlords: K3 Holdings, Wedgewood Homes and Invitation Homes.

According to the housing department report, K3 Holdings ranks as having the fastest-growing inventory of properties over the six-year period. The company agreed to pay $2.2 million to settle a lawsuit in 2023 that alleged they illegally targeted long-term Latino residents for displacement from properties in Koreatown and Highland Park.

Wedgewood Homes takes the top spot in flipped L.A. properties, the study found. That company agreed to pay $3.5 million in 2021 after allegations that the company unlawfully evicted and harassed tenants in order to quickly resell homes.

The housing department found Wedgewood Homes sold nearly 400 homes in the six-year period of its study. The company resold 81% of those homes in less than a year at an average price increase of 33%, the study found.

Invitation Homes is one of the largest owners of single-family rentals in the U.S., the report said, and the company agreed to pay $3.7 million to settle a lawsuit over allegations of illegal rent increases for around 1,900 California homes.

K3 Holdings and Wedgewood Homes have previously denied any allegations of wrongdoing, and court documents show Invitation Homes Inc. did not admit or deny liability in the lawsuit against the company.

LAist reached out to all three companies about the report’s findings. They did not immediately provide additional comments.

Other council members weigh in

At the Wednesday meeting, council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson said he appreciated the effort going toward solving this issue.

“When I first took office [in 2015], eight out of every 10 residential units that went up for sale were bought by a corporation,” he said about the area in South L.A. where District 8, 9 and 15 meet.

Harris-Dawson said because the corporations were buying up properties, working people were squeezed out of the housing market in the once-affordable area.

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez also criticized corporations and large investors.

“Homes that should be places where people put down roots, raise their kids and build generational wealth are increasingly treated like commodities in an investment portfolio,” Hernandez said.

Councilmember John Lee welcomed the study, but said he blames the consolidation on the council’s own policies that make it harder to be a property owner.

“I don’t even know if we need a study,” he said. “I think we understand why there’s more corporatization of ownership in our city. It’s the over restrictive policies of this council.”

The story first appeared on The LA Local.
Editor’s note: This is part of our “My LA” series — a look at how changing demographics are shifting culture in LA’s historic neighborhoods and communities — told by the people from those communities.

It’s Jan. 11, 2025, and I’m sitting in a restaurant in downtown Los Angeles fighting the overwhelming urge to cry.

I just learned my house survived the Eaton Fire, but I can’t shake the tremor in my friends’ voices who lost theirs. The fire is 15% contained — four days into what would become the second-most destructive fire in California history.

Across from me sits Francisco Sánchez, associate administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration under President Joe Biden, who oversees the Office of Disaster Recovery and Resilience. Sánchez flew in from Washington, D.C. to see the devastation caused by the Eaton and Palisades fires.

In disaster-response circles, he’s something of a legend. He helped coordinate the rapid conversion of the Houston Astrodome to house families displaced by Hurricane Katrina. But he’s also about to lose his job. The Trump administration is set to take over the federal government in nine days.

I run through the facts about Altadena. One in five residents is Black. One in four is Latino. The median age is 45.

We talk about resiliency and rebuilding. We talk about neighbors banding together to collectively bargain with contractors. We talk about the Army Corps of Engineers choosing not to conduct soil testing in Altadena — the first time it has declined to do so after a major fire in two decades.

But it’s the last thing Sánchez tells me that stays with me a year later.

“You have to fight like hell to make sure what happened in Hawaii doesn’t happen to you,” he said. “They will turn Altadena into condos, if you let them.”

Firefighters battling a blaze in Altadena

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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Breathing was difficult

In the spring, the calls began.

Neighbors scattered across Los Angeles County started receiving offers from real estate agents and private equity firms that had quietly moved into the region.

Before the fire, private acquisitions accounted for about 5% of home sales in Altadena. Four months later, they accounted for nearly 50%.

What Sánchez warned about was already happening. Breathing was still difficult on my block.

The Eaton Fire began as a wildfire but quickly became an urban fire. The Los Angeles Times compared the toxicity levels in our area to New York City after the Sept. 11 attacks.

I worried about neighbors — mostly people of color — whose homes survived but who had little choice but to return quickly because they lacked sufficient insurance coverage.

I worried about the air we were breathing. But no one seemed able to tell me who was responsible for monitoring it.

At the disaster center on Woodbury Road, sympathetic county officials told me the state of California oversaw air quality. I called my state senator, Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez.

Pérez, a newly elected Democrat and former mayor, took my calls — and those of my neighbors — seriously. She contacted the governor’s office and spoke with the team responsible for air quality in Altadena.

The response she received was: “It’s complicated.” That might have been the understatement of the year.

The My LA series looks at how changing demographics are shifting culture in LA’s historic neighborhoods and communities — told by the people from those communities.

Moments of grace

Months passed.

It became heartbreaking to watch Altadena residents leave LA altogether because they couldn’t afford to live anywhere else in the city. It was even harder to watch my neighbor across the street sell his home after placing an “Altadena Is Not for Sale” sign on his lawn.

Still, amid the devastation, there were moments of grace.

Volunteers from across Los Angeles flooded the greater Pasadena area to help after the fire. Residents leaned on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), mutual aid networks, family members, local churches and the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation. 

I volunteered at — and relied on — community donation centers myself. One of the most meaningful was the Pasadena Community Job Center, which served the region’s undocumented population.

Even though my home didn’t burn, I had to evacuate after high levels of lead were detected inside.

From wherever I was staying, I drove an hour to attend town halls, join community meetings, ask questions at disaster centers and speak with elected officials.

Nearly half of Altadena — an unincorporated foothill community long known for its diversity and working-class stability — had burned.

Firefighters battle to save a home

Only one firetruck

Months later, Sánchez called again.

He was no longer a federal employee, but he still checked in on me and my neighbors. He suggested I attend a Crisis Management Academy at Hayes Boone in downtown LA, where he sat on the board.

I pulled my suit from a vacuum-sealed remediation bag and went.

By chance, I sat next to Rick Crawford, the emergency and crisis management coordinator for the U.S. Capitol and Supreme Court and a former battalion chief with the Los Angeles Fire Department.

I told him I lived west of Lake Avenue — historically the predominantly Black, Latino and working-class side of Altadena.

Nineteen of the 20 deaths from the Eaton Fire occurred there and only one firetruck was initially sent to that side of town.

Evacuation notices arrived hours later than they did in wealthier neighborhoods east of Lake Avenue — if they arrived at all. My family never received one.

I asked Crawford if he believed racism explained the disparity. He told me something worse might have happened.

The night before the fires, he said, officials knew a severe wind event was coming. Yet staffing levels were not increased.

“Business as usual,” he called it.

When the Palisades Fire ignited, city resources were quickly stretched. The city turned to the county for help. When the Eaton Fire exploded, the county deployed the firefighters it had left to protect Altadena.

By the time flames reached west of Lake Avenue, resources were gone.

A failure of preparation turned into a failure of response — one that hit my side of Altadena hardest.

The Fair Oaks Burger restaurant became a community rallying point

The sounds of construction

One year later, Altadena is still waiting.

Friends who lost their homes are waiting for settlements from Southern California Edison Co., which investigators believe caused the Eaton Fire, to determine whether they can rebuild at all.

Trial is scheduled for January 2027. A judge recently ordered Edison to produce witnesses when called, criticizing attempts to prolong the discovery process for attorneys representing fire victims. A grand jury is also considering whether to indict the utility company in connection with the 19 deaths in Altadena.

Those of us who have returned do what we can to support one another — and the small businesses trying to survive.

In those days, my business meetings happened at Miya, Unincorporated Coffee or Fair Oaks Burger.

Community advocates — including Altadena for Accountability and Altadena Rising, along with Pérez — pushed the California Department of Justice to open a civil rights investigation into the evacuation response in West Altadena.

Walking along Altadena Drive, I thought about the homes and gardens that had once lined the street.

Reconstruction has begun, slowly. The sound of construction — loud, constant — is an inconvenience. But it’s better than the eerie silence that followed the fire.

On Mariposa Street, I passed the empty space where Amara Kitchen and Altadena Hardware had once stood.

Next door, something new appeared. Betsy, the restaurant from chef Tyler Wells — who also lost his home in the fire — was drawing diners from across LA for its live-fire cooking.

It lifted my spirits to see people coming to Altadena again. But as a local resident, I still struggled to get a reservation.

Maybe that was the first glimpse of what rebuilding might look like: those with money and privilege dining easily, while the rest of us remain on the waiting list.

The rebuild is slow. The pain is enormous. But the resilience of Altadena is fierce.

We fight for accountability, truth and justice. We fight for the right to rebuild our town as it once was. Most of all, we fight for one another.

Because, as labor leader Mary Harris “Mother” Jones once said: “Pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living.”

Is your neighborhood changing? We want to hear your story. Whether you’ve lived on your block for forty years or four, we want to know: What does “home” mean to you right now?Share a brief memory or a thought on how your neighborhood is changing with us at pitches@thelalocal.org. We’ll feature some of our favorite responses in our newsletter, and if your story sparks something deeper, we may reach out to commission a full-length piece (yes, we pay our writers!)

The post ‘Pray for the dead, fight for the living’ — How Altadena is battling to rebuild without being displaced appeared first on LA Local.

The U.S. military said on Friday that all six crew members were killed when a KC-135 refueling aircraft went down in Iraq, raising the death toll after two weeks of war with Iran.

The U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees the Middle East, reported an unspecified incident involving two aircraft Thursday. It said the U.S. KC-135 refueling aircraft was lost in western Iraq, while the other landed safely. It is investigating the circumstances but confirmed the "loss of the aircraft was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire."

The news came as President Trump and his defense secretary touted success in the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran but complained about negative media coverage of Operation Epic Fury.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday that joint U.S.-Israeli military strikes have hit more than 15,000 targets and injured the new Iranian supreme leader.

President Trump, in a post on Truth Social, said the U.S. is "totally destroying" Iran's regime, militarily and economically.

Late Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had weakened Iran's rulers, but it may not be enough to topple them — the Iranian people would have to do that.

Iranian and Lebanese health officials and Israeli authorities reported more than 1,300 people killed in Iran, 773 people in Lebanon and 12 civilians in Israel, as well as two Israeli soldiers killed in Lebanon. Wednesday's aircraft crash over Iraq brings the U.S. military death toll to 13, seven of whom were killed in combat. Eight U.S. service members are severely injured, according to the Pentagon.

The humanitarian toll also deepened as the total number of people displaced by the fighting in Iran and Lebanon reached into the millions.

Here are further updates about the conflict.

Officials brace for an end without a deal — and the risk of a "war routine"

A senior official in the region, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal deliberations, told NPR they expected the war to last at least another week, and that Israeli leaders increasingly believe the U.S. and Israel will end the war unilaterally, without a negotiated agreement. In such a scenario, the official said, Iran and allied groups, including the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Houthi rebels in Yemen, could establish a new normal of intermittent fire at Israel, prompting repeated Israeli retaliation.

The official said that kind of tit-for-tat exchange would leave Israelis living with an intolerable "war routine" even if the intensity of the conflict fades.

The official also said Israel is not ruling out an expanded ground operation in southern Lebanon, but described Israel as holding back so far from striking broad civilian infrastructure, largely because the U.S. sees Lebanon as a partner.

— Daniel Estrin, Carrie Kahn

Israel expands strikes in Iran and hits Hezbollah targets in Lebanon

Israel's air force said Friday it struck more than 200 targets over the past day in western and central Iran, including ballistic missile launchers, air defense systems and weapons manufacturing sites.

The military said the strikes included simultaneous strikes in Tehran, Shiraz and Ahvaz. They targeted regime infrastructure, including an underground site used to produce and store ballistic missiles, as well as a central air-defense base.

In Lebanon, Israel said it hit Hezbollah command centers in the country's south and in central Beirut.

A senior official in the region, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said the strike on Beirut's bustling Bachura neighborhood, located near the prime minister's office, was symbolic, and meant to send a message that Israel will not tolerate Hezbollah's fire much longer.

Lebanon's president, Joseph Aoun, has called for direct talks with Israel to end the bombing. Israel has not responded publicly on the matter.

The Israeli military also said it struck the Al-Zrariya Bridge over the Litani River, describing it as a key crossing used by Hezbollah fighters and an area from which launchers had been positioned.

— Hadeel Al-Shalchi and Rebecca Rosman

Iran and Hezbollah attacks hit Israel overnight; dozens treated for minor injuries

An Iranian ballistic missile in the northern Israeli town of Zarzir left dozens lightly wounded, according to Israel's emergency services organization, Magen David Adom.

One person was reported to be in moderate condition and was being treated after being hit with shrapnel. Another 57 people were being treated for minor injuries, mostly from glass shards.

Hezbollah also continued firing into northern Israel overnight, and Israel's military said its air defense and strike operations were responding across both fronts.

— Rebecca Rosman

U.S. temporarily eases Russian oil sanctions for cargoes already at sea

The Trump administration issued a temporary authorization allowing countries to purchase Russian oil already stranded at sea. It argued the move is a narrowly tailored step to stabilize energy markets.

In a post on X, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the measure applies only to oil "already in transit" and will not provide significant financial benefit to Russia.

In a statement published last week, a number of top Senate Democrats warned such a move would weaken sanctions and benefit Russia as energy prices rise.

— Rebecca Rosman

French soldier killed in attack in Iraq

French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday a French soldier was killed in an attack in the Irbil region of Iraq that left several other French soldiers wounded.

Macron called the attack "unacceptable" and said the war in Iran cannot justify strikes on forces deployed in Iraq as part of the fight against ISIS.

Since the start of the war with Iran, the French president has underlined his concerns about international law not being respected, but also deployed several naval vessels to the Eastern Mediterranean, near Cyprus, to protect French military bases and citizens in the region. French officials have insisted it is a defensive, rather than an offensive mission.

— Eleanor Beardsley

Daniel Estrin and Carrie Kahn contributed to this report from Tel Aviv, Hadeel Al-Shalchi contributed from Beirut, Jane Arraf from Irbil, Rebecca Rosman and Eleanor Beardsley from Paris.
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