Palisades: The $7.5M Rebuild Test

JordynOkay, David, quick game. I say an address, you guess the price.

DavidPalisades address? I'm already scared.

Jordyn915 North Kagawa Street.

DavidHit me.

Jordyn$7.5 million.

DavidFor a rebuild? That's not a listing lot. That's a finished house?

JordynFully finished, occupied, fire-hardened, built by Thomas James Homes.

DavidWait, this is the one that got the certificate of occupancy?

JordynThe very one. First house back on the market since the fire, going head-to-head with the pre-fire comps.

DavidNo spec shell, no burned lot with a for sale sign stuck in the ash?

JordynNope. Actual walls, actual roof, actual asking price.

DavidWhich is exactly why we're leading with it this week, the first Real test case anyone's got.

JordynHad to. This is the whole rebuild story compressed into one open house.

DavidThis is Listing Price. I'm David.

JordynI'm Jordyn, and this is the number the whole rebuild story's been waiting on.

DavidSo is seven-five a steal, a stretch, or exactly what this street used to cost?

JordynWait for it.

DavidOh, you're gonna love this part, from the sticker shock to what's actually behind that front door.

JordynLet's go look inside. Okay, so forget the number for a second. Picture the actual house, nine one five North Kagawa. This thing sits up on a rebuilt driveway, three-car garage, and the pool's already tiled in.

DavidWait, the pool's done? That's usually the last thing to get permitted.

JordynDone. Filled. Blue.

DavidOf course it is.

JordynAnd it's not just the pool. The landscaping's already in. The hardscape's poured. This isn't a staged rendering. It's a lived-in yard with actual plants that have had time to root.

DavidThat's the detail that gets me. Most of the rebuilds we've talked about on this show are still framed lumber and dreams. This one's got a finished driveway you could actually park a car in today.

JordynAnd I mean actually lived in. There's patio furniture out there, not a staging crew's rental set.

DavidThey really want you to forget this thing was ash a year and a half ago.

JordynAnd get this, FOX 11 reported the certificate of occupancy came through on this one, which makes it the first Palisades rebuild to actually clear that finish line.

DavidThe actual first. Not a framed shell, not a project with a temporary power hookup. A signed-off, move-in-ready house.

JordynRight. And that's the whole test. Buyers walking through aren't imagining a finished product anymore. They're standing in one.

DavidSo what does the build quality look like compared to what burned?

JordynDifferent animal. Every new structure going up in the Palisades right now falls under the state's updated Wildland Urban Interface Code. A permit data analysis from Shovels flags it as taking effect January first, twenty twenty-six.

DavidMeaning the rebuilds after that date are held to a stricter fire standard than the homes that were lost.

JordynExactly. We're talking ember-resistant vents, Class-A roofing, defensible landscaping setbacks, stuff that wasn't code required in twenty twenty-four.

DavidThat's a lot of upgrades hiding behind a stucco wall.

JordynRight. None of it's flashy. You don't Instagram a vent cover. But it's the difference between a house that survives an ember storm and one that doesn't.

DavidWhat's insurance even like on a house like this?

JordynBetter than the lot next door probably. A house built to that stricter code is exactly the kind of risk an insurer wants to underwrite right now compared with pre-code construction.

DavidSo the buyer at this price point isn't just paying for square footage.

JordynNo. They're paying for a house built to survive the next one.

DavidThat's a hard thing to put a number on.

JordynIt is, but it's real. Walk the driveway. Look at the roof line, the vent covers. None of that's cosmetic anymore.

DavidYou don't usually monologue about a vent cover, Jordyn.

JordynI contain multitudes.

DavidAnd that's gonna keep happening for a while. One finished house next to a slab and a chain link fence over and over down these blocks.

JordynWhich is exactly why buyers touring this one are going to compare it to the house that used to stand there, not to the dirt sitting next door.

DavidAnd the neighbor's lot next door is probably still bare dirt.

JordynProbably. That's the split we keep circling. Finished house on one side, empty lot on the other. Same street.

DavidTwo completely different products.

JordynTwo completely different buyers, honestly.

DavidOne's buying a house, the other's buying a bet.

JordynNot wrong.

DavidSo that's the house, one finished, permitted, Fire-hardened code product sitting on the market.

JordynThat's the product.

DavidNow, the bigger question is whether anybody's actually building like this at scale or if this one house is the exception everybody's pointing to.

JordynOkay, so get this. HousingWire frames this listing against roughly six hundred and fifty permits approvals across the Palisades.

DavidSix-fifty?

JordynRight. And nearly four hundred and seventy-five burned lots that have already sold empty.

DavidThat's the number the creator brief leans on too, so it's the headline figure everyone's citing this month.

JordynIt's a clean number for a listing story. Round, easy to cite, easy to remember, and it fits neatly into one paragraph.

DavidSure, but clean and accurate aren't always the same thing in this business, and this is exactly the kind of number people repeat without ever asking where it came from.

JordynBut wait, there's more, because that six-fifty doesn't match what anybody else is counting.

DavidNo way.

JordynFOX 11 reported roughly one thousand and sixty-nine permits issued as of last November.

DavidThat's almost double.

JordynRight? Same fire, same neighborhood, and the numbers aren't even close.

DavidAnd then Crosstown ran the city's own data and landed on five hundred and sixty-three, but only for new ground-up construction.

JordynOkay, that one I actually believe because it's the narrowest slice.

DavidCrosstown also flagged that permit issuance actually dropped in November and December of last year.

JordynWait, dropped? After the city promised to speed things up?

DavidThat's what they found. The pipeline stalled right when everyone said it was accelerating.

JordynOh, okay. Plot twist.

DavidAnd then CalMatters zooms out even further. More than two thousand six hundred residential permits across Palisades and Altadena combined by early this year.

JordynThat's counting two fire zones together, though.

DavidRight. Which is a totally different denominator. Governor Newsom called that pace historic compared to past California disasters.

JordynHistoric compared to what, though? Compared to Camp Fire? Sure. Compared to a normal subdivision permitting a house? That's still slow.

DavidAlso worth noting, the twenty-six hundred number includes Altadena, and Altadena's got a totally different housing stock and price point. Lumping them together tells you total permits, but blurs the on-the-ground reality in the Palisades specifically.

JordynRight. So historic is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

DavidOkay, but walk me through why FOX Eleven's count is so much bigger than HousingWire's. Same neighborhood, same rough window.

JordynI'm guessing FOX Eleven's counting every permit type: electrical, plumbing, re-roofs, the whole administrative pile, not just new houses going up. HousingWire's probably sticking closer to what's actually listable, finished home permits.

DavidWhich would explain why Crosstown's ground-up number is so much smaller than both of them.

JordynRight. If you strip down to just new single-family construction, of course the number shrinks. It's the narrowest possible slice of the same pie.

DavidI think the Six-fifty number is just conservative. Ground-up, single family, right now, today.

JordynI think it's spin. Somebody wanted a smaller, cleaner number for a listing story.

DavidOr it's methodology. Ground-up only versus every permit type versus two fire zones stapled together. Those are three different questions.

JordynSure. But three different answers to three different questions still adds up to Nobody agreeing on how fast this is actually moving.

DavidThe rebuild is real. The speed is the argument.

JordynAnd for a Buyer walking into an open house on Kagawa, does any of this permit math even cross their mind?

DavidProbably not consciously, but it shows up in how confident they feel writing an offer. A buyer who's read the neighborhood's rebuilding fast prices differently than one who's read the pipeline's stalled.

JordynSo the permit fog isn't just a wonk argument. It's actually shaping what people are willing to pay.

DavidRight. Because confidence in the recovery timeline is baked into every offer on every rebuild from here forward.

JordynSo messy math, contested pace.

DavidBut does any of that actually matter if buyers are already writing checks?

JordynOkay, so before we go full doom and gloom on the permits, what's this house actually going for compared to everything else on the street?

DavidThat's the real number to chase. Median in the Palisades right now runs somewhere between two point eight three million and three point five million, and that's Redfin, Zillow, Movoto, and Homes.com all pulled together back in May.

JordynThat's a wide range for one zip code.

DavidIt's wide because half that inventory is dirt and half of it is finished houses, and those two things do not behave the same.

JordynRight. Like the lots.

DavidExactly the lots. A HousingWire report on this same listing flagged that same batch of already sold vacant parcels. Those trade completely on their own, separate from anything with a roof on it.

JordynSo the lot buyer and the house buyer aren't even shopping the same thing.

DavidNot even close. Lot buyer's pricing dirt, view, maybe a set of architect's plans he can hand to a builder. House buyer's pricing something he can move a family into next month.

JordynTwo different carts, same aisle.

DavidSure. Same aisle.

JordynTake the lot buyer's math for a second. They're pricing in permit uncertainty too, since nobody agrees whether six hundred and fifty or over twenty-six hundred permits are actually out there.

DavidRight. So lot pricing is basically a bet on how fast the whole street fills back in, not just their own parcel.

JordynAnd you can see that bet already showing up in list prices for vacant lots. Sellers guessing high because they think the fog will clear in their favor.

DavidOr guessing low because they want a quick sale before the picture gets any messier.

JordynExactly. Whereas the house buyer on Kagawa isn't betting on anything. They're buying a finished, occupied, code-compliant product they could move into this month.

DavidWhich is exactly why this listing matters more than a normal comp. It's not trading as a lot. It's not a builder flipping a spec shell. It's finished, it's move-in ready, and it's going head-to-head against pre-fire houses for the first time.

JordynRight. That's the actual test everyone's been waiting on.

DavidAnd it's blowing past that median by more than double.

JordynMore than double the median on a street where half the comps are just dirt.

DavidRight. That's not comparing apples to apples. Comparing apples to a crater.

JordynOr it's one house.

DavidOh, here we go.

JordynI mean, I mean it. One listing at that price tells you one seller thinks buyers will pay. It does not tell you the whole market repriced overnight.

DavidBut if it closes anywhere near ask, doesn't that say something? That's a seller betting on real value and being first and being done.

JordynIt says what one seller thinks and what one broker's comp sheet says. Give me three more of these closing before I call it a premium.

DavidWhat would even count as three more, though? Another finished Thomas James build two doors down?

JordynSure. Or any fully rebuilt code-compliant house in the Palisades closing anywhere near list. Doesn't have to be the same builder, just the same category. Finished product, first time on market since the fire.

DavidSo we're not there yet.

JordynNot even close. We've got one data point and a lot of opinions about what it means.

DavidFair, but you can't get three more overnight. This is the only fully finished one on the market right now.

JordynWhich is exactly why I don't trust the number yet. Small sample, huge price tag. Easy to read whatever story you want into it.

DavidOkay, give me the counter counter then. If this listing sits on the market for months or chips down hard, doesn't that tell us something concrete?

JordynSure. A data point either way. That's actually my whole point. Right now we've only got the one. So whichever direction it breaks, don't treat it like gospel.

DavidFair. I'll take informative over gospel. We just have to remember it's one house, one seller, one moment in time.

JordynOkay, so it's not proof, but you don't need proof to see which way the herd's leaning.

DavidDirection, sure. Not a verdict.

JordynSo if the sale itself can't settle it, what is everybody actually saying out there? Agents, appraisers, the people who'd know.

DavidThat's exactly where we go next.

JordynOkay. So David, you know I went digging through threads after we recorded the last segment.

DavidOh, no.

JordynNo, no, stay with me. There's a real estate agent on there, a guy named Brian, and he reacted to the whole HousingWire story.

DavidAnd?

JordynHe basically posted it like a mic drop. His line was that the listing and the permit number together prove the Palisades is not done.

DavidNot done, huh?

JordynThat's the vibe. One caption, big declaration.

DavidSee, that's the thing about industry threads posts. They're not data, they're mood lighting.

JordynMood lighting. I like that.

DavidIt's a guy with an audience reacting to a headline, not an appraisal.

JordynOkay, fair. But does not done actually track with the numbers we've got, or is that a stretch too?

DavidIt's not wrong, it's just incomplete. Six-fifty permits and one closed rebuild are real. That's not done, that's moving. Different word, different claim.

JordynSure, but it's still worth noting. When the agents who actually work these blocks start posting that way, that's a signal.

DavidA signal of confidence maybe, not of comps.

JordynBut think about who's actually reading that post. Other agents, other sellers deciding whether to list their own rebuild right now. Confidence is contagious in this business, especially when the whole market is starved for good news. Sure, and so is panic. A post like that can just as easily talk somebody into overpricing their own rebuild because one guy on Threads said the neighborhood's back.

DavidFair. That cuts both ways. And it's not just the seller who's watching, it's everyone with a lot down the street doing math on when to list.

JordynRight. That cuts both ways.

DavidAnd it's not just the seller who's watching, it's everyone with a lot down the street doing math on when to list.

JordynRight. Herd behavior, but for real estate agents instead of stock traders.

DavidIt always does with this kind of chatter. It moves fast, it's not fact-checked, and it's optimized for engagement, not accuracy.

JordynRight. Right. I'm not saying build a spreadsheet out of it.

DavidGood, because you can't.

JordynI'm saying it tells you where people's heads are at before the numbers catch up.

DavidHeads can be wrong for a long time, though.

JordynVery true.

DavidEspecially in this business.

JordynEspecially in this business.

DavidSo we clock it as sentiment. One post, one opinion, filed under vibes.

JordynSure.

DavidDon't forecast. Go for vibes.

JordynHere's what I keep coming back to, though. Even mood lighting has to come from somewhere. Nobody's out there posting, "Not done," about a neighborhood that's actually stalled.

DavidSure. But nobody's posting the boring, accurate version either. One house sold, permits are contested, we'll see. That doesn't get engagement.

JordynNo, it does not.

DavidSo take the sentiment for what it is, a snapshot of how the people closest to the deal flow are feeling this week, not a forecast.

JordynA snapshot, not a forecast. I can live with that framing.

DavidAnd honestly, that's why we don't just wave it off either. A snapshot still tells you something, even if it's not the whole picture.

JordynRight. It's the difference between reading tea leaves and reading a thermometer. One guesses, the other measures, but they're both telling you it's warm in here.

DavidOkay, I'll allow the metaphor.

JordynSo when a listing agent posts something that confident, that's the temperature check, not the diagnosis.

DavidExactly. And the diagnosis is still pending. We need the actual closing price. We need a second rebuild to list. We need something beyond one caption.

JordynBut vibes aside-

DavidHere's what we're actually gonna be watching for going forward.

JordynWhich is?

DavidWhether the next rebuild that lists does it anywhere near this price or whether this one's an outlier.

JordynAnd whether the lot sales start catching up in dollar terms or stay their own game.

DavidOne data point tells you a mood. A second one tells you a trend.

JordynSo that's the scoreboard we need next. So walk me through it. What actually changes now that this house is on the market?

DavidThe comp math changes. Every appraiser doing a Palisades rebuild valuation for the next year points at Kagawa Street first.

JordynWait, seriously? One listing becomes the whole ruler?

DavidIt's the only ruler that exists right now. There's no second finished rebuild to check against yet.

JordynOkay, but hang on. That pricing site with the median range we quoted earlier, what's it actually saying about where this fits?

DavidThe pricing site that put together that median range is basically saying this listing is now the number every future rebuild gets measured against.

JordynWhich is wild, because six months ago, there was nothing to comp it against at all.

DavidRight. It was all vacant lot math and gut feel.

JordynHuh.

DavidWhether you trust the low permit count or the high one, doesn't matter. Everybody building right now is watching what this one does.

JordynThat's the part that gets me. The permit fight is basically background noise compared to what one house actually closes for.

DavidRight. Because the whole story here, price against the permit pace, standing home against vacant lot, is really one test. Does the finished product hold its value against pre-fire comps?

JordynAnd that matters for financing too, beyond bragging rights.

DavidTotally. Lenders need a comp before they'll write a jumbo loan on the next rebuild. Right now, this house is doing that job alone.

JordynOne house carrying the whole appraisal file for a neighborhood.

DavidWhich is a lot of weight for one door and one pool.

JordynSo the permit count answers, is it happening? The price answers, is it worth it?

DavidExactly. And right now we only have half an answer.

JordynWhich half?

DavidWe know it's happening. We don't know yet if it's worth it.

JordynSo basically we're grading on a curve with one student in the class.

DavidThat's one way to say it.

JordynEvery broker in that zip code is bookmarking this listing.

DavidAs they should. Nobody wants to eat the appraisal gap.

JordynWhat we're actually watching is what it closes for.

DavidRight. Asking price is a guess. Closing price is the receipt.

JordynIf it closes near ask, that turns the rebuild premium story into real money on paper.

DavidAnd if it sits or chips down five, six percent-

JordynThen the standing home premium isn't as bulletproof as one Threads post wants it to be.

DavidOoh, brutal.

JordynThe ask is the opening argument. The close is the verdict.

DavidBecause right now we've got a listing and one Threads post. That's it.

JordynA second finished house changes the whole picture. Actual apples to apples.

DavidThat's next week's number then, whatever this thing actually sells for.

JordynOr the week after. Escrows don't move on our schedule.

DavidFair. Either way, we're circling back the second there's a closing price on record.

JordynAnd if a second rebuild listing pops up before that, we're grabbing it too.

DavidTwo data points beats one every time.

JordynAlways.

DavidAnd whichever way it breaks, it's gonna ripple into every other rebuild conversation happening on that street right now.

JordynWhich is exactly why we keep saying this isn't just gossip about one house. It's the test case for the whole recovery.

DavidAll right. Asking price, permit fight, and one Threads post. That's the scoreboard for this week.

JordynSo the number we're actually watching now is one thing. What does that Kagawa house close for?

DavidNot the ask, the wire transfer.

JordynExactly.

DavidIf it closes near seven and a half, every lender in that zip code updates their spreadsheet.

JordynPoor spreadsheet.

DavidIf it ships down five, six percent, the lot buyer's feeling pretty smug.

JordynWe'll be back on this the second escrow closes. I promise you that.

DavidNew episodes drop every Tuesday.

JordynFollow Listing Price wherever you're listening right now. Seriously, just tap it.

DavidAnd if you're sitting on a deal, a weird listing, a lot that just sold for something absurd...

JordynSend it to us. We want it.

DavidWe read every single one.

JordynDavid reads every single one. I skim.

DavidFair.

JordynAnd if you've got questions about your own rebuild comp, send those too. We can't appraise your house, but we can point you at what we're seeing.

DavidFree market color, no liability.

JordynHonestly, this is the kind of story where the house is just the excuse. The real thing is watching a whole neighborhood figure out what it's worth in real time.

DavidThat's Palisades right now.

JordynSee ya Tuesday.