{"id":16574,"date":"2025-09-07T02:50:48","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T02:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=16574"},"modified":"2025-09-07T02:50:48","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T02:50:48","slug":"real-estate-speculators-are-swooping-in-to-buy-disaster-hit-homes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=16574","title":{"rendered":"Real Estate Speculators Are Swooping In to Buy Disaster-Hit Homes"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\u201cHi there Gina, hope you\u2019re having a great day,\u201d said another exactly two weeks later. \u201cMy name is Christine, I am a land buyer. I\u2019m reaching out to see if you have any plans to sell the lot.\u201d The text was signed by \u201cTwin Acres.\u201d Twin Acres is not a registered real estate broker. Grist\u2019s attempt to text the number back went unanswered.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, Miceli said, she answers the texts. \u201cIt depends on my mood. I think there\u2019s been a time or two I\u2019ve said, \u2018Go to hell.\u2019\u201d She has no plans to leave. She\u2019s raising her family in the home her husband\u2019s grandparents bought, and she owns a local brewery.<\/p>\n

Some theorists call<\/span> this phenomenon \u201cdisaster gentrification,\u201d when real estate investors flood a disaster zone to buy up damaged properties for cheap.<\/p>\n

Samantha Montano, a professor of emergency management and author of the book Disasterology<\/em>, spent years living and working in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and saw it happen with her own eyes. In areas like the Lower Ninth Ward, some people displaced by the storm didn\u2019t have the resources to return. Speculators rushed in<\/a>. Some landowners became instant millionaires<\/a>, selling their properties to out-of-state developers hoping to rebuild and flip their property.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe issue of gentrification in New Orleans was there from the beginning,\u201d Montano said. \u201cThere were many groups who were warning about that, advocating for housing policy and other recovery policies to account for gentrification. [They] tried to prevent it.\u201d Twenty years later, the demographics of New Orleans have shifted: Lower-income and Black residents have been displaced<\/a>, and whiter, wealthier new residents took their place. \u201cCertainly that is all very much intertwined in the recovery and in who had access to the resources to return and rebuild\u2014and who didn\u2019t,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In the wake of the Eaton Fire in Altadena, California, earlier this year, half of home purchases were by limited liability corporations, according to Dwell<\/a>, the home design news site. That\u2019s nearly double what they typically represent compared to individuals buying homes. Just six companies\u2014among them Ocean Development Inc. and Black Lion Properties LLC\u2014dominated those transactions in Altadena, spending millions of dollars to purchase destroyed properties in historically Black neighborhoods. It\u2019s difficult to find out who these companies are: Often, they contact potential sellers through fake phone numbers or under names that aren\u2019t necessarily attached to real corporations.<\/p>\n

The value of disaster-struck land consistently bounces back fast,<\/a> meaning that buyers can flip the land or homes\u2014sometimes even without making repairs. As climate change fuels more frequent severe natural disasters across the United States, \u201cdisaster investors\u201d seem set to make greater profits than ever\u2014and communities like North St. Louis stand to bear the burden.<\/p>\n

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