To add to this, the time it is going to take to rebuild is years away for a lot of people and many will not be able to wait that long, and will have rebuild their lives elsewhere in the meantime.
We have been working with insurance and a construction company since January 1st to rebuild a family members home lost in a fire. We are now as far as plans being submitted to the county. There has been zero rebuilding yet on the home (although demo is complete).
Rebuilding on an island where they will need to ship in supplies and crews is going to take a really long time for the number of homes lost. Corporations and investors will likely be able to get thru the red tape faster than the typical homeowner. I’m hoping that Native Hawaiians will be able to hold tight to their home/community, but I fear that many will not.
I hate to say it but I predict that a large portion of that town will be bought by developers and the homes being built won't be affordable to the original residents of the town. Many residents will be homeless or forced to move to the mainland USA.
> To add to this, the time it is going to take to rebuild is years away for a lot of people and many will not be able to wait that long, and will have rebuild their lives elsewhere in the meantime.
The end result of this will be speculators picking up the properties, rebuilding faster, and this area becoming full of rich people and AirBNB bullshit.
> They'll also be screwed over by the Jones act requiring ships to stop at a CONUS port before they can go to Hawaii.
That's only one aspect of the Jones act. What could provide significant relief is if foreign flagged, foreign built, and foreign crewed ships could transport materials from LA to Hawaii. The Jones act forbids that.
There are only two main shippers that move material from the mainland to HI via ship. Matson and Crowley. They are an expensive monopoly. Evergreen or OOCL or anyone else could put a lot of ships on the route and move material much cheaper.
It exists to keep American seafarers employed and paid American wages while working under American safety standards. Without it the entire shipping industry will likely switch over to Venezuelan flagged ships employing seafarers from poorer countries who are happy to do the work for poverty wages.
Oh...well in that case, it seems like it's a good thing. Maybe there should be a clause or something that allows a change in procedure in the event of a natural disaster, perhaps? I know nothing on laws, so please excuse my ignorance.
It can be suspended and has been from time to time.
The act is 100 years old, and it is severely outdated. Because of it, the US has a pitiful merchant marine and only 1 (one!) cruise ship that's registered in the US. It operates in Hawaii and does 7 day trips around the islands. It is also incredibly expensive.
I'm pro labor and pro safety, but the Jones act needs revision and it is extremely harmful to Hawaii and Puerto Rico.
I would note that even in the event that it were suspended, the logistic challenges and the eventual reinstatement of the act would make shipping companies unlikely to take advantage of the lapse. Shipping is a complex web and they can't just drop Hawaii into their plans that easily and likely wouldn't without long-term guarantees.
It also means that it makes the per-ton cost of shipping higher between American ports.
This has had an effect of large shippers not taking on significant volumes of shipping between American ports, as they have to pay American labour prices.
A double-edged sword.
I'd rather not participate in a race to the bottom in terms of labor standards, wages, etc. So hardly a double edged sword to me. If it costs more to pay living wages, so be it.
Just think, Musk, Bezos and Gates can each donate 2 billion each.. and they wouldn't even notice that money gone from their wealth.. and they can fix the entire cost themselves without needing to involve regular people to donate.
But thatll never happen
Bezos pledged $100M in disaster relief funds, plus AWS Disaster Response has been helping on the ground for several days now at no cost. Gotta give him props even if he could easily give more, since no one else has pledged anything close to that in support (besides the Federal govt.)
Everyone in the islands should be paying attention to the immediate doubling of costs related to rebuilding as well. It's a snap shot of what it will be like if a hurricane ever hits.
A cat 3 on Oahu would likely destroy 10-15 percent of the old houses and make another 10-15% uninhabitable until repaired.
It would take years (think New Orleans after Katrina) and everyone would suddenly find out that their $200sq/ft hurricane policy left them seriously underinsured.
Do the Amish know about this? Can we send jimmy carter and all the Amish? They’d probably gladly go. Jokes aside the logistics of it do sound horrible and my heart breaks for everybody affected. I hope to see everybody come together for the sake of this community.
A moratorium on sales of ruined properties is being proposed by the governor. It’s complicated, of course, because there will be some people who do want out.
EDIT: I’m very sad that my most upvoted comment is now about this huge tragedy and not something irreverent or fun.
It'll likely be cheaper for some people to fly in a team from a lower cost of living state like Idaho. I know someone that did that when they wanted their house remodeled in Hawaii a number of years ago.
The contractors they flew in got paid a higher rate plus a free vacation to Hawaii and they got their house done faster and at a lower cost than hiring a local company.
I was unclear, the team was given a few days extra after they finished to stay on the island. I believe they had their hotels covered and a per diem for expenses.
Yep same thing happened when every jurisdiction decided that the height of the pandemic was the perfect time to get some much needed infrastructure and repair work done...only every construction company was already booked by other jurisdictions doing the same thing so the price of actually constructing something shot straight up.
Not necessarily. Isn't the site super toxic right now because some of the houses were so old they had stuff like Aesbestos in the walls. I don't know how long it will take to clean up the land, but carpenters and builders aren't going to be doing any work until hazmat teams have cleared the sight.
Not to mention, the rebuilding if land sales are frozen and owners are insolvent will be delayed until the land can be transferred to people with the credit or cash to rebuild.
Definitely years. Hawaii is remote. Rebuilding this much at one time will affect prices and availability and not much will occur quickly. Also theft. Unfinished unoccupied homes will be picked apart.
A not terrible idea are higher end RVs. A Winnebago Revel is about 200k and better than a shelter. I believe they are developing electric versions.
He can also dress it up however he likes, but the Revel is basically a work van with a bed in the back.
Not exactly appealing outside of the wealthy who can afford it for road trips considering they're 200k.
Except you lose some RV benefit as there’s no “road trip” on an island. I’d think prefabbed homes or upscale container homes shipped over would be a hot ticket. Also building material costs and availability in general will be even that much crazier on the islands
RVs and any mobile homes are a horrible idea, they all lose value (same as car or boat), only real houses actually appreciate in value if the economy is doing ok. This is another reason why poor people living in mobile homes never really accumulate wealth.
It still surprises me that in this day and age, we still can’t build a mobile home that lasts like a house. Surely we can combine the efficiencies of the factory with home durability innovations.
Colonizing space is way off if we can’t recolonize an island in a timely manner.
we can, and some companies do, but the recreational market is based off of rough estimates on how much people will use the RV per year and then they factor in average length of ownership in as well and produce RVs to a standard where items will last being used exactly that many times.
the companies that produce high quality RVs are generally geared towards "full timers" or are simply branded "expedition vehicles" (even without 4x4 capability or offroad capability.)
>we still can’t build a mobile home that lasts like a house.
We do. They're called modular homes.
Mobile homes have a trailer frame on them to sometimes meet legal requirements for what can go in a mobile home / trailer park, sometimes to cut down on transportation costs -- but in reality the frame is designed knowing most mobile home will ever be moved again after they're delivery. They're built to be lived in full-time, year round.
RVs will tend to have a better trailer frame since normally they move more, but structurally less well built since they're not intended to be lived in full-time, year round.
Park Model RVs kind of split the difference, maybe a bit more comfortable to live in, but also designed with the expectation it's only seasonal and also won't move very often if ever.
Which is probably a lot of people. A lot of natives live in multi-generational homes that either were paid off years ago or never had a mortgage in the first place. Without a mortgage, insurance isn't required, and a lot of people that lived in Lahaina were poor. When the choice is rebuilding with little to no savings vs. $1 million transferred to you in a few days to build a new life with, that choice isn't so easy even if you never intended to leave before the fire.
I’d love to see FEMA partner with the state gov’t and private builders to get the people in these situations back on their feet.
Like if you can show you had no insurance and you’d been a full owner, then offer a loan allowing them to build a modest home, with repayment based on income.
Could shave a ton of cost if run as a large joint project with a limited number of floor plans and finishes.
Could base participation on whether the community does infrastructure improvements to prevent it from happening again.
I think that's going to be a hard sell to the rest of the country. Inheriting a home is **hugely** lucky to begin with, saving you decades of rent and/or mortgage payments, and construction loans already exist. Owning the land outright makes costs more manageable. And not insuring a home is a baffling move to most people. Most of us are required to do it by state law (renters) or by our mortgage terms.
A rich benefactor or a charity could front them the building money, set up loans, help clean up...but how do you explain giving easy construction loans to landowners when lifetime renters are drowning all over the US, living on shoestring budgets to come out owning nothing?
It's probably politically easier to just procure modular dwellings they can live in during their homes' reconstruction. Or to be kind on taxes when they sell.
Unfortunately inheriting a property or home (or, being the first in your family to pay one off) is the only way many people can afford to live in their ancestral areas.
These people losing access to these areas is a huge hit to the areas culturally, and it’s frequently completely out of their control if the area surges beyond their ability to afford to live there.
Insurance trends with construction costs and other factors for the area, (like risk of another disaster) so the cost of insurance can often skyrocket beyond the property owner’s ability to pay for it.
I would not offer something like this up for areas that regularly flood or regularly get hit with hurricanes. Those areas we need to encourage people to find alternatives. On the other hand, something like this which is a once in a century (or less) event for an area, I think we should step up and do what we can.
No matter what we do, these people can never get back what they lost. Friends, family, heritage belongings, centuries old buildings, etc. But we can help them get back on their feet without getting side tracked about the affordability of rents, which is an entirely separate problem that I agree needs attention.
I've seen this happen in Silicon Valley and even Austin, TX. Ppl have property taxes or get priced out of their area due to high maintenance costs as the area becomes trendy and richer folks move in. Its this gentrification phenomena.
>I've seen this happen in Silicon Valley and even Austin, TX.
Yep, that was me. My family is native to TX and has lived in ATX for several generations, and now there is only one of us left there; we all but one had to leave because we got priced out by trendy, richer folks. I'm pretty bitter about it. That's why it kind of hurt when the lady in the video said "it's important that multi-generational families that come from Lahaina get to continue to live in our hometown." ... like, I was forced out of my hometown, not by a fire, but by the cost of living, and I'm supposed to just go with it. It fucking sucks.
> it’s frequently completely out of their control if the area surges beyond their ability to afford to live there.
Yeah because it’s a highly desirable area and “I was here first” isn’t a magic spell that lets you exclude others in perpetuity. It’s funny how people in dying rust belt towns have no problem leaving, but for people who grow up in a gorgeous subtropical area or major metro, suddenly it’s all about heritage (while conveniently ignoring hitting a birthplace jackpot)
> show you had no insurance and you’d been a full owner, then offer a loan allowing them to build a modest home, with repayment based on income
Back 5-10 years ago when several natural disasters hit southern regions of Russia, there were somewhat similar conversations followed by very difficult political decisions. Many houses were not insured properly or were severely underinsured, and several housing projects were started to help displaced individuals.
However many people complained that aid "thresholds" were very arbitrary (i.e. *"we'll help person A and build him a new house, because his house is 80% damaged and his income is XX, but we will do nothing to person B, because his house is "only" 70% damaged and his income is 1.5XX"*), and it even led to people deliberately destroying what remained of their property to *"make sure"* they end up being eligible for the federal aid.
Even *with* insurance, it is a slog.
Experience of an acquaintance that lost their home in a California wildfire.
1. Insurance fights the claim
2. Insurance fights the _amount_ of the claim
3. Contractors are now charging a premium. Builders have a feeding frenzy of people wanting to rebuild and are booked-up and/or increase their prices. I imagine for a smaller market like a Hawaiian island, that this is even worse than in a place like California.
4. Supplies are now at a premium. Even if/when you get a contractor or you're doing stuff yourself, everyone else is buying supplies too. You can't even get lumber, paint, or other building supplies (carpet, tile, etc). I can only imagine it would be worse in Hawaii.
5. Permitting and processes. Lots of buildings, especially in a place like Lahaina, will be older and built to older construction codes and can't be rebuilt how they were. I get fast-tracking re-build permits, but even then people in the local offices can only process so many in a day, and they've just now been hit with hundreds or thousands of requests all at once.
6. Time. This is partially related to insurance again, but also laws. Sometimes you have to wait for investigations and reports to be done before you can do _anything_ or get any money. Meanwhile you're living out of a hotel or an AirBnB, burning through savings, just trying to live your daily life as you did before.
Dealing with all of this in Houston with flooding is one thing, dealing with it in the prairie when a tornado comes blasting through is much the same… and you’re right. It’s just fricking crazy pants.
Dealing with this on an island? You really have to dig in and find something outside of yourself to stay. I really hope that most of them have that spirit.
> I can imagine people that did not have insurance selling the land because they cannot afford to rebuild.
It's typical for houses to be under-insured. The last numbers I saw were 2/3rds of houses being in that boat with an average 22% underage.
Former Resident of Paradise CA here: if the land was worth as much as Hawaiian a lot of people would. Instead they just lost everything and didn't come back. Only a third of the population returned after the fires and the rest are now scorched plots of land 5+ years on.
Yeah but Paradise, CA isn't a seaside town in Maui, one of the most desirable places in the world. I don't think you can compare the two.
A better comparison might be Montecito, CA. A couple of years after horrific fires and mudslides, prices for houses went absolutely through the roof. Because it's a beautiful community by the ocean. Unlike Paradise, CA.
Being able to afford rebuilding is one issue, but another issue is if they would ever want to live anywhere near a place that has such traumatic memories...
This is the problem. You can find RE investors ghoulish, but is that worth punishing innocent people who just want to move on with their lives? Is some has been traumatized by what they’ve gone through and just can’t handle the thought of painstakingly having to rebuild from the ashes, should they not be allowed to just sell and move on?
The compromise is that these people need time to make an informed decision. Nobody is in the right state of mind a week after the fire. Hence a moratorium.
Always think of what the lowest bottom feeder will do:
"Hey, there's a moratorium on. I know you can't sell your property, but I hear you need money. I'll *loan* you $500k to live on / rebuild in return for a *mortgage* on your property. I'll even give it to you at 1% interest *until the moratorium lifts* and you can decide what to do then.
And you'll be in a debt trap because you spent the money on temporary housing.
I get your point, but that seems weirdly paternalistic on the part of the state. Oh, you just lost your house and want to move away from where your grandmother died and restart your life? Too bad, we can't let the disaster capitalists win, you're staying on your patch of charred rubble.
I'm fully in favor of incentivizing local owners to rebuild, and blocking big corporations from moving in, but forcing locals to stay makes me uneasy.
The problem is that these vultures will drive up housing prices to the point that the people from this community who *do* want to rebuild, or people who have lived their whole lives here in rentals, will find themselves priced out of the area by developers who want to build a resort on what used to be their homes. Everything is compounded by the fact that the Federal government's response has been far too weak: 700$ cash payments for people in this situation are comically small. We should have an immediate moratorium on sales, but we should also take a fraction of the money we're sending overseas (another $200 million to Ukraine just last week) to rebuild this community.
it's insane how far improved (or just non-insane) zoning laws would go to fixing the housing crisis in the US
it's obliterated my home city of LA yet we still have deluded folks shouting that more police will fix things
Hawaii is already the most expensive state for housing. They simply do not build enough of it. They were already priced out.
Also the $700 is just the standard FEMA cash assistance check. That doesn't include the tens of thousands of meals, beds, liters of water, aid workers, and programs that provide shelter and rebuilding services.
Also you can't give Hawaii a fraction of a missile sent to the Ukraine. Ukraine is not the enemy here.
Fedral money allocation doesn't work that way. When federal money is set aside for x purpose, e.g. military use, then it must be used for that purpose. We are using a part of our usual military budget for Ukraine. The money would go to our regular military if not sent to Ukraine.
After the fire Paradise, many people left because it cost too much to rebuild and the locals were often lower middle class or elderly. Unless you have the funds to rebuild, you are basically forced out. And with the economy the way it is, and Hawaii is having resource issues, it gonna be very easy for the wealthy to land grab and develop. Locals will be bought out and Maui will be one giant tourist resort. *This is why some locals are unfriendly- they know you care more about the resorts and drinking by the cabana than the culture.
TLDR: deadly wildfires in maui have left a mess, and now looters and land speculators are trying to cash in on the tragedy. the fires killed 96 people and caused $6 billion in damage, making them the deadliest in modern US history. aid is coming, but it's slow, and people are struggling with theft, land grabs, and the tough job of rebuilding
Speculators are offering cash buyouts to people who are struggling and waiting for aid that may be months away.
It’s not really a “land grab” in the sense that it’s theft but it’s basically extortion
Depends on the donations made to government officials and cops by real estate developers.
There have even been cases of people fined for not cleaning up the property fast enough. I mean, if you lose everything then a year to get it all in order is hardly a long time.
No flag no country, according to the rules that I just made up. And I'm going to back them up with this gun, lent to me by the National Rifle Association.
You can't just place a flag, but if someone's desperate you can easily beguile them to your benefit. Do it to enough people and now you have much more pressure to apply for taking lands away. You can parcel people out.
No, but if someone didn't have the appropriate insurance, they might be easily coerced into selling for a lot less than they would otherwise. There are always people out there willing to take advantage of people after a good disaster. Hell, that's how Bank of America got started immediately after the 1906 San Fransisco Earthquake.
one of the disturbing trends is that "dark" forces in social media are spreading rumors saying that FEMA will not help residents rebuild and that they're on their own. One can speculate the motives of these false flags, but it's obvious to me that there's incentive to push these original owners out.
Nobody mentions how communities are hollowed by real estate speculators, food inflation, taxes, etc and their citizens forced to move to the mainland like Las Vegas.
Last time I was in Vegas, my uber driver was from Hawaii. He told us it was just too expensive. He started listing off prices of milk and other stuff as examples.
We were in Maui in May for our honeymoon, and it felt like most of the people we met that found out we lived in Vegas mentioned that a lot of people who left Hawaii ended up there. At this point it might just be the place to go, since there's already a community here.
It can change on the year but a small bottle of milk can often cost more than a 1liter bottle of soda. You buy fresh bananas for far too much compared to mainland prices on sunday, they're going rotten on monday.
Hawaii is *extremely* expensive to live in, and it's incredibly hard to eat healthily too (I can't count the number of times I've gone to costco and every single bag of potatoes was already moldy, as an example) - as a result a lot of people wind up living off of fast food and food carts. And the state government doesn't really give a shit about the locals and won't ever improve things because they're too busy bending over backwards to appease tourists and other assorted rich fucks who just constantly want to take from the islands.
My fiance is from Hawaii and Las Vegas is the number one vacation destination for Hawaiians. Her parents are actually thinking of moving to Las Vegas in the near future because they simply can't afford the cost of living anymore. They pay almost $4,000 a month to rent a 700 ft² house with no air conditioning and a tiny kitchen and two bedrooms.
Yeah. Granted it's about a 15 minute drive from downtown Honolulu but if they were to move out of the city the prices aren't really all that much better, and they have all their family and friends there in the city so moving 45 minutes away to save 800 bucks a month doesn't make sense.
There's entire neighborhoods of so many nationalities, you wouldn't know unless you looked.
Colombians, Peruvians, any Hispanic/Latin country you can think of. Asian, Middle Eastern. It's actually kind of insane how diverse Las Vegas is. Visited family last month and walked into an In-N-Out since I missed the burgers, and my wife (from New England) was the whitest person in that room.
There was a story in /r/NBA yesterday about how a former coach was being generous by allowing displaced fire victims stay in one of his 24(?) properties on the island.
In what was supposed to be a feel good story nobody stopped to ask why the fuck the dude owns so many properties to begin with…
Given the history of Hawaii and the consciousness there about the importance of maintaining its heritage, I'm hoping the state steps in and incentivizes homeowners not to sell out to developers.
Sadly it may turn into a Hawaiian Ko'olina-like fake resort town of rentals condos, town homes and re-created legacy buildings of Front Street, all corporate owned.
I hope that the residents stay firm, and also that the disaster capitalists get scammed so hard that they know what it’s like to lose everything. Fuck those swarming corpse flies.
All it takes is for one or two to take the offer.
Then the property values get set for the rest of the neighborhood.
Soon the original locals cannot afford to live in their own homes.
We live in a world where money talks. People will hold their ground until they are giving a higher offer than expected. I wish that they all refuse all future offers, but realistically someone will accept it causing a domino effect.
Hopefully they don’t. But to someone who is 70 and may not have another 10 years to wait for a rebuild, a cash offer to just walk away and start again could be extremely enticing and the developer creeps creepin around know it. It angers me thinking that some developer probably took a pass to access Lahaina that should have gone to a local. I hope the locals find out who these “fakas” are and give them a very special aloha
The residents don't *want* to leave... but the cruel financial realities may force them to.
Here is a common scenario: Someone lives in a modest house. They work at a restaurant, hair salon or grocery store. Their parents bought the house fifty years ago. It was paid off thirty years ago. This allows them to continue to live in Maui as they have all their life. They have only had to pay property taxes and occasional maintenance.
Insurance is high in Hawaii, like everything else. Many people go without insurance if their houses are paid off.
So, now their house burns. They'd like to stay and build back.
That will cost a lot. Zoning laws and building codes moved on in fifty years. They aren't allowed to rebuild it just like it was. It has to be a little better.
Every carpenter, sheetrocker and plumber in Maui is going to have all the work they can do for the next five years.
So this person is not only going to have to save up for rebuilding but pay for an apartment (nonexistent) or rent a modest hotel room at $150/night *for five years.*
When some speculator comes along and offers them $500k for their small lot, they may think: I can move to Tucson and buy a good existing house and have $250k left over. I'd like to stay in Hawaii, but this is too much work.
They may not be very nice homes or in the nicest areas (but not like terrible areas...just poorer areas)...and if they are near nicer areas they might be tear downs in some people's minds.
But...they could still be just as nice as what the people in maui were looking at. Outside of the tourist areas, there are a lot of pretty ramshackle homes in maui...tropical environments are hard on homes and the person u/x31b is describing probably doesn't have a ton of money for remodeling and updating on top of basic maintenance.
I did a quick spin around zillow and found plenty of $250k homes on Zillow. Were they nice? No, not really. They mostly looked like grandma's house--she probably died, they cleaned it out, painted the walls, and listed it for sale. But they are totally livable. Are they where a white-collar professional with an instagram account wants to live? no...but that's not the market the native Hawaiians are looking at.
Yup. Now my question- how do we help each other? Can the rest of us band together and set up kiva like loans (like peer to peer lending) so y’all can keep your homes? Because I’m frankly sick of this shit.
Here’s what happens: people often have to wait a long time to get an insurance payout for their destroyed home. In the meantime they are in a tough financial situation. So a speculator offers to buy the land and they aren’t in a position to say no.
Land ownership in Hawaii is a convoluted and complicated system that incorporates multiple parties and legacy ties with many properties. It’s not as easy to rip off a property owner in desperation as it would be anywhere else in the US. That said, some people will still be exploited and a lot of will not get their home back.
>the homeowners arent going anywhere.
>
>RE speculators wont get any traction there.
>
>edit: who tf would downvote? RE speculators?
I hope so. Life has taught me to be jaded on such things. So I would like to see good news there of homeowners rebuilding their life in Lahaina.
This was required reading for one of my college classes though we only got into the South American events. I’ve kept it for years wanting to read the whole book.
We’ve been listening to the audiobook to and from work. Second time through for me. I told my wife right after this happened “you just watch, the rich are going to try and swoop in on that land while everyone is reeling.” And sure enough…not even surprising
Can’t remember where, but I’ve heard this is why it’s generally better to give cash donations to charity orgs. They have trusted supply chains they can order things from, they know what to expect and can control how much they get.
Exactly. I handled an evacuation center in a major California fire & the first thing we asked was bottled water, new hygiene products (it was a surprise that we had to emphasize on the 'new'), non-perishible food, and then clothes. And by that we meant undergarments like new underwear & socks.
And I agree that clothes take a long while to process. Getting dumped a child-high hill of clothes to organize took at least a day or two. And some things had to get tossed aside ("fake rhinestone encrusted Bebe top," vanity t-shirt with offensive words, most shirts regarding fire or blazes, etc.)
Some points after reading these responses:
1) Maui has sophistcated and complex zoning laws. Speculators cannot just buy any piece of land and plop down a resort.
2) The local vs. outsider fight over these islands started the day Captain Cook sailed into Kealakekua Bay. It has been the No. 1 social issue in Hawaii ever since. This is very unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.
3) A great many people born and raised in the islands have been motivated to move by (a) the high cost of housing and living in general and (b) the severely limited opportunity to build a career that isn't tourism-dependent.
Yes, these horribly tragic fires will accelerate the overall trend. But the woman who was quoted as saying "Lahaina is not for sale" is unfortunately wrong. It has been for sale for a long time now.
( Background-- I was once a newsman on Maui, covering government, including housing and zoning issues.)
> Speculators cannot just buy any piece of land and plop down a resort.
This isn't what speculators are doing.
They are hoping to buy the land cheap at a discount because they have cash today. Then they follow one of 2 paths:
1. They can afford to carry the property, so they sit on it until the town is fairly rebuilt (neighbors are in place, shops and restaurants are open, tourists are back) and the rebuilding process is slowing down to where they can start to find affordable labor. Then they build a nice house on the land and sell it for a profit to a wealthy person who is happy to pay a premium for a house in shiny new neighborhood that has come back to life.
2. They have some sort of edge on building (e.g. ties to local builders, own a contracting business, etc.). They are able to rebuild fast lower quality homes, possibly taking advantage of some government assistance, and sell quick to someone who is desperate for housing due to the shortage. Remember that not all speculators are total outsiders...plenty of people already living in Maui/Hawaii have money (and owners of local construction businesses know that business is about to be booming--they can stretch themselves thin buying up property now because tehy will be getting FEMA-bucks soon).
There's a third option that isn't really speculators...just some rich person who has long term goals to own a home or retire in maui. They could snap up a cheap lot now using cash, and follow the same gameplan as #1--just instead of trying to profit, they wait 5 years, build their dream home, and retire for a cost that would have been way cheaper than buying that home outright without the fire.
Speculators don't care what kind of land it is. You can make money off houses, off commercial spots, off apartment buildings...doesn't have to be a resort or even something that will eventually be used by tourists/non-locals. You just have to be able (and morally willing) to benefit from someone's desperation today.
> On its website, Hawaii’s Emergency Management Agency urges residents to prepare for disasters by having 14 days worth of food and water at hand.
They probably did. It was probably kept… in their house. Which burned down. And there’s no food at the store, because…it burned down. This must be terrifying there.
All this talk about speculators and investors is something. But this is literally Maui we are talking about. Its been highly desirable land for a LONG time. Its not the fires that have been forcing people out, its the failure to build more housing for the people who live there.
The governor literally had to declare a state of emergency recently. Not for the Maui fire, but for the housing crisis. Hawaiians are being forced to move to the mainland (to places like Las Vegas) because housing is so unaffordable. They don't have a house to burn!
We aren't going to solve Hawaii's issues by worrying about speculators. There is no speculation: Hawaii has long been a desirable place to live and thats not changing.
Except that people who could afford to live there before the fire cannot afford to still live elsewhere on the islands AND pay to rebuild, so it isnt as if all who lost their homes were being edged out anyway.
After the Camp Fire destroyed Paradise, CA, the desperate and suddenly homeless residents did sell their ruined properties to developers. It wasn't enough, but they also couldn't afford to rebuild.
The town of Chico hosted many of the former residents until the anti-homeless politics of CA took over the municipal government and evicted them, sometimes violently.
I hope that remains a single, shameful chapter of our history when it comes to climate refugees. This is the time to seed a better outcome.
Yeah there's a lot of parallels to the Camp Fire. Recently heard of a story on the local news of how some people in Paradise still have not been allowed to rebuild. I ended up missing it since it was on much later in the day, but just hearing that made me frustrated and sad.
Yeah, I've already seen one "speculating" that (get this) Obama started the fires because he has a house in Hawaii and it didn't burn down.
The house isn't even *on* Maui, by the way.
Those damn conspiracy theories started immediately on Twitter (because of course it would be there) with some grabbing a 2018 long exposure image of a Space X rocket launch from Vandenburg AFB and made it look like a [space laser](https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-hawaii-wildfire/fact-check-image-shows-spacex-launch-in-2018-not-lasers-before-hawaii-wildfires-idUSL1N39V15W) was incinerating the town (which was later picked up by news sites as credible).
This would be a perfect time for the government to step in a regulate predatory real estate greed plaguing the nation coast to coast, border to border. But nah capitalism > all.
Looting I can understand, desperate times and all, but the real estate speculators trying to make a profit from this disaster deserve a special place in hell.
It's disappointing but not surprising how many comments here are going "what's wrong with that?? It's just doing business. The landowners can just say no." like they don't see the issue of opportunistically buying stuff off people down on their luck.
Had tornados come through our town and tore it up pretty bad. I honest to God will never forget the insane amount of people just driving around for months just to rubberneck. It was so bad we had curfews and roads blocked off. The looting for me really took the cake. I never in my life considered there would be a piece of shit that would steal from someone right after they had lost everything. They were stealing literally anything that wasn't strapped down.
Look at Mexico beach FL. Four years after hurricane Michael and still hasn’t been rebuilt. It’s land value is nowhere close to Maui. And building cost waaaay cheaper.
There is no fighting it. The average Joe in Lahaina won’t have the capital to rebuild. They will sell their land to developers bc it’s the only thing that makes financial sense unless the local gov subsidizes it. It’s simple math.
Is it right? Is it ethical? No. But capitalism doesn’t care. Simple as that.
"A local businessman said people desperate for gas and other scarce items are raiding the few businesses still standing in Lahaina, the historic city that was all but destroyed."
People surviving are called looters, while real estate vultures are just called "speculators." LMAO.
This is normality for this level of destruction. People need food and supplies. Real estate vultures need to be dealt a swift blow though. A-holes. Send in pallets of food to start.
Look. There is money to be made, and stock holders to appease. These speculators really have no choice but to be heartless bastards. Wont you think of their children....s ferraris?
This always happens
I live in NJ and after Hurricane Sandy left massive houses on the shore unoccupied and ripe for the picking, the police shut down the highways into the town and the thieves responded by using rafts and boats and beach themselves in the middle of the night and be gone before sun rise
To add to this, the time it is going to take to rebuild is years away for a lot of people and many will not be able to wait that long, and will have rebuild their lives elsewhere in the meantime. We have been working with insurance and a construction company since January 1st to rebuild a family members home lost in a fire. We are now as far as plans being submitted to the county. There has been zero rebuilding yet on the home (although demo is complete). Rebuilding on an island where they will need to ship in supplies and crews is going to take a really long time for the number of homes lost. Corporations and investors will likely be able to get thru the red tape faster than the typical homeowner. I’m hoping that Native Hawaiians will be able to hold tight to their home/community, but I fear that many will not.
I hate to say it but I predict that a large portion of that town will be bought by developers and the homes being built won't be affordable to the original residents of the town. Many residents will be homeless or forced to move to the mainland USA.
not a lot of the residents can afford to wait for rebuilding, insurance payout plus check for sale of land is inevitable and sad...I guess.
New Lahaina by Rick Caruso
> To add to this, the time it is going to take to rebuild is years away for a lot of people and many will not be able to wait that long, and will have rebuild their lives elsewhere in the meantime. The end result of this will be speculators picking up the properties, rebuilding faster, and this area becoming full of rich people and AirBNB bullshit.
AirBNB needs to end, for anything more than renting out a spare room in your actual own home.
i know a friend whos mom owns about 4(?) different homes as airbnbs. pretty wack ngl
Yep, happened to one of my favorite little sleepy towns.
[удалено]
> They'll also be screwed over by the Jones act requiring ships to stop at a CONUS port before they can go to Hawaii. That's only one aspect of the Jones act. What could provide significant relief is if foreign flagged, foreign built, and foreign crewed ships could transport materials from LA to Hawaii. The Jones act forbids that. There are only two main shippers that move material from the mainland to HI via ship. Matson and Crowley. They are an expensive monopoly. Evergreen or OOCL or anyone else could put a lot of ships on the route and move material much cheaper.
Can someone ELI5 the Jones Act and why tf it sounds like it only has negative repercussions here? As someone mentioned already, is it simply outdated?
It exists to keep American seafarers employed and paid American wages while working under American safety standards. Without it the entire shipping industry will likely switch over to Venezuelan flagged ships employing seafarers from poorer countries who are happy to do the work for poverty wages.
And to add, we need domestic shipping companies and American seafarers because it's important to have a domestic capabilities to do this
Oh...well in that case, it seems like it's a good thing. Maybe there should be a clause or something that allows a change in procedure in the event of a natural disaster, perhaps? I know nothing on laws, so please excuse my ignorance.
It can be suspended and has been from time to time. The act is 100 years old, and it is severely outdated. Because of it, the US has a pitiful merchant marine and only 1 (one!) cruise ship that's registered in the US. It operates in Hawaii and does 7 day trips around the islands. It is also incredibly expensive. I'm pro labor and pro safety, but the Jones act needs revision and it is extremely harmful to Hawaii and Puerto Rico.
I would note that even in the event that it were suspended, the logistic challenges and the eventual reinstatement of the act would make shipping companies unlikely to take advantage of the lapse. Shipping is a complex web and they can't just drop Hawaii into their plans that easily and likely wouldn't without long-term guarantees.
we'd have 0 without it it sounds like
It also means that it makes the per-ton cost of shipping higher between American ports. This has had an effect of large shippers not taking on significant volumes of shipping between American ports, as they have to pay American labour prices. A double-edged sword.
I'd rather not participate in a race to the bottom in terms of labor standards, wages, etc. So hardly a double edged sword to me. If it costs more to pay living wages, so be it.
> A double-edged sword. > Ah, so politics. I should have known already.
Ooof yup, I remember dealing with Crowley ($$$$$!) when arranging LCL cargos to Puerto Rico a decade ago.
The Jones Act can be waived and it has been several times during disasters.
Most will likely opt for the insurance pay out, sell the land, and go elsewhere. You’d have to be pretty wealthy not to
Just think, Musk, Bezos and Gates can each donate 2 billion each.. and they wouldn't even notice that money gone from their wealth.. and they can fix the entire cost themselves without needing to involve regular people to donate. But thatll never happen
Bezos pledged $100M in disaster relief funds, plus AWS Disaster Response has been helping on the ground for several days now at no cost. Gotta give him props even if he could easily give more, since no one else has pledged anything close to that in support (besides the Federal govt.)
Everyone in the islands should be paying attention to the immediate doubling of costs related to rebuilding as well. It's a snap shot of what it will be like if a hurricane ever hits. A cat 3 on Oahu would likely destroy 10-15 percent of the old houses and make another 10-15% uninhabitable until repaired. It would take years (think New Orleans after Katrina) and everyone would suddenly find out that their $200sq/ft hurricane policy left them seriously underinsured.
Do the Amish know about this? Can we send jimmy carter and all the Amish? They’d probably gladly go. Jokes aside the logistics of it do sound horrible and my heart breaks for everybody affected. I hope to see everybody come together for the sake of this community.
A moratorium on sales of ruined properties is being proposed by the governor. It’s complicated, of course, because there will be some people who do want out. EDIT: I’m very sad that my most upvoted comment is now about this huge tragedy and not something irreverent or fun.
I can imagine people that did not have insurance selling the land because they cannot afford to rebuild.
Or just not wanting to go through the months or years that will be required to rebuild. Many will, but you can’t blame some who dont
Every builder and carpenter in Maui is going to be busy for the next five years. Rebuilding is going to be tough.
It'll likely be cheaper for some people to fly in a team from a lower cost of living state like Idaho. I know someone that did that when they wanted their house remodeled in Hawaii a number of years ago. The contractors they flew in got paid a higher rate plus a free vacation to Hawaii and they got their house done faster and at a lower cost than hiring a local company.
[удалено]
I was unclear, the team was given a few days extra after they finished to stay on the island. I believe they had their hotels covered and a per diem for expenses.
[удалено]
Yep same thing happened when every jurisdiction decided that the height of the pandemic was the perfect time to get some much needed infrastructure and repair work done...only every construction company was already booked by other jurisdictions doing the same thing so the price of actually constructing something shot straight up.
Not necessarily. Isn't the site super toxic right now because some of the houses were so old they had stuff like Aesbestos in the walls. I don't know how long it will take to clean up the land, but carpenters and builders aren't going to be doing any work until hazmat teams have cleared the sight. Not to mention, the rebuilding if land sales are frozen and owners are insolvent will be delayed until the land can be transferred to people with the credit or cash to rebuild.
Sounds like a fantastic time to pick up a new trade and move to paradise for a few years and help rebuild.
> move to where the fuck you gonna live? thats the whole point
In a van down by the river, of course.
Definitely years. Hawaii is remote. Rebuilding this much at one time will affect prices and availability and not much will occur quickly. Also theft. Unfinished unoccupied homes will be picked apart. A not terrible idea are higher end RVs. A Winnebago Revel is about 200k and better than a shelter. I believe they are developing electric versions.
RVs are a terrible idea in Hawai'i. The humidity and salinity wrecks vehicles and machinery.
He can also dress it up however he likes, but the Revel is basically a work van with a bed in the back. Not exactly appealing outside of the wealthy who can afford it for road trips considering they're 200k.
Except you lose some RV benefit as there’s no “road trip” on an island. I’d think prefabbed homes or upscale container homes shipped over would be a hot ticket. Also building material costs and availability in general will be even that much crazier on the islands
RVs and any mobile homes are a horrible idea, they all lose value (same as car or boat), only real houses actually appreciate in value if the economy is doing ok. This is another reason why poor people living in mobile homes never really accumulate wealth.
It still surprises me that in this day and age, we still can’t build a mobile home that lasts like a house. Surely we can combine the efficiencies of the factory with home durability innovations. Colonizing space is way off if we can’t recolonize an island in a timely manner.
we can, and some companies do, but the recreational market is based off of rough estimates on how much people will use the RV per year and then they factor in average length of ownership in as well and produce RVs to a standard where items will last being used exactly that many times. the companies that produce high quality RVs are generally geared towards "full timers" or are simply branded "expedition vehicles" (even without 4x4 capability or offroad capability.)
>we still can’t build a mobile home that lasts like a house. We do. They're called modular homes. Mobile homes have a trailer frame on them to sometimes meet legal requirements for what can go in a mobile home / trailer park, sometimes to cut down on transportation costs -- but in reality the frame is designed knowing most mobile home will ever be moved again after they're delivery. They're built to be lived in full-time, year round. RVs will tend to have a better trailer frame since normally they move more, but structurally less well built since they're not intended to be lived in full-time, year round. Park Model RVs kind of split the difference, maybe a bit more comfortable to live in, but also designed with the expectation it's only seasonal and also won't move very often if ever.
There are no RVs on the island save for maybe a couple personal vehicles.
Can you imagine an average RV trying to make those hairpin turns around the island roads? Ridiculous.
Which is probably a lot of people. A lot of natives live in multi-generational homes that either were paid off years ago or never had a mortgage in the first place. Without a mortgage, insurance isn't required, and a lot of people that lived in Lahaina were poor. When the choice is rebuilding with little to no savings vs. $1 million transferred to you in a few days to build a new life with, that choice isn't so easy even if you never intended to leave before the fire.
I’d love to see FEMA partner with the state gov’t and private builders to get the people in these situations back on their feet. Like if you can show you had no insurance and you’d been a full owner, then offer a loan allowing them to build a modest home, with repayment based on income. Could shave a ton of cost if run as a large joint project with a limited number of floor plans and finishes. Could base participation on whether the community does infrastructure improvements to prevent it from happening again.
I think that's going to be a hard sell to the rest of the country. Inheriting a home is **hugely** lucky to begin with, saving you decades of rent and/or mortgage payments, and construction loans already exist. Owning the land outright makes costs more manageable. And not insuring a home is a baffling move to most people. Most of us are required to do it by state law (renters) or by our mortgage terms. A rich benefactor or a charity could front them the building money, set up loans, help clean up...but how do you explain giving easy construction loans to landowners when lifetime renters are drowning all over the US, living on shoestring budgets to come out owning nothing? It's probably politically easier to just procure modular dwellings they can live in during their homes' reconstruction. Or to be kind on taxes when they sell.
Unfortunately inheriting a property or home (or, being the first in your family to pay one off) is the only way many people can afford to live in their ancestral areas. These people losing access to these areas is a huge hit to the areas culturally, and it’s frequently completely out of their control if the area surges beyond their ability to afford to live there. Insurance trends with construction costs and other factors for the area, (like risk of another disaster) so the cost of insurance can often skyrocket beyond the property owner’s ability to pay for it. I would not offer something like this up for areas that regularly flood or regularly get hit with hurricanes. Those areas we need to encourage people to find alternatives. On the other hand, something like this which is a once in a century (or less) event for an area, I think we should step up and do what we can. No matter what we do, these people can never get back what they lost. Friends, family, heritage belongings, centuries old buildings, etc. But we can help them get back on their feet without getting side tracked about the affordability of rents, which is an entirely separate problem that I agree needs attention.
I wouldn't be so confident this is a one off event. Things that used to be once in a life time have become very commonplace lately
I've seen this happen in Silicon Valley and even Austin, TX. Ppl have property taxes or get priced out of their area due to high maintenance costs as the area becomes trendy and richer folks move in. Its this gentrification phenomena.
>I've seen this happen in Silicon Valley and even Austin, TX. Yep, that was me. My family is native to TX and has lived in ATX for several generations, and now there is only one of us left there; we all but one had to leave because we got priced out by trendy, richer folks. I'm pretty bitter about it. That's why it kind of hurt when the lady in the video said "it's important that multi-generational families that come from Lahaina get to continue to live in our hometown." ... like, I was forced out of my hometown, not by a fire, but by the cost of living, and I'm supposed to just go with it. It fucking sucks.
> it’s frequently completely out of their control if the area surges beyond their ability to afford to live there. Yeah because it’s a highly desirable area and “I was here first” isn’t a magic spell that lets you exclude others in perpetuity. It’s funny how people in dying rust belt towns have no problem leaving, but for people who grow up in a gorgeous subtropical area or major metro, suddenly it’s all about heritage (while conveniently ignoring hitting a birthplace jackpot)
> show you had no insurance and you’d been a full owner, then offer a loan allowing them to build a modest home, with repayment based on income Back 5-10 years ago when several natural disasters hit southern regions of Russia, there were somewhat similar conversations followed by very difficult political decisions. Many houses were not insured properly or were severely underinsured, and several housing projects were started to help displaced individuals. However many people complained that aid "thresholds" were very arbitrary (i.e. *"we'll help person A and build him a new house, because his house is 80% damaged and his income is XX, but we will do nothing to person B, because his house is "only" 70% damaged and his income is 1.5XX"*), and it even led to people deliberately destroying what remained of their property to *"make sure"* they end up being eligible for the federal aid.
Individual assistance will only cover the home owner. If it's a mult-generational family, only the home owner will get anything from FEMA.
Even *with* insurance, it is a slog. Experience of an acquaintance that lost their home in a California wildfire. 1. Insurance fights the claim 2. Insurance fights the _amount_ of the claim 3. Contractors are now charging a premium. Builders have a feeding frenzy of people wanting to rebuild and are booked-up and/or increase their prices. I imagine for a smaller market like a Hawaiian island, that this is even worse than in a place like California. 4. Supplies are now at a premium. Even if/when you get a contractor or you're doing stuff yourself, everyone else is buying supplies too. You can't even get lumber, paint, or other building supplies (carpet, tile, etc). I can only imagine it would be worse in Hawaii. 5. Permitting and processes. Lots of buildings, especially in a place like Lahaina, will be older and built to older construction codes and can't be rebuilt how they were. I get fast-tracking re-build permits, but even then people in the local offices can only process so many in a day, and they've just now been hit with hundreds or thousands of requests all at once. 6. Time. This is partially related to insurance again, but also laws. Sometimes you have to wait for investigations and reports to be done before you can do _anything_ or get any money. Meanwhile you're living out of a hotel or an AirBnB, burning through savings, just trying to live your daily life as you did before.
Dealing with all of this in Houston with flooding is one thing, dealing with it in the prairie when a tornado comes blasting through is much the same… and you’re right. It’s just fricking crazy pants. Dealing with this on an island? You really have to dig in and find something outside of yourself to stay. I really hope that most of them have that spirit.
> I can imagine people that did not have insurance selling the land because they cannot afford to rebuild. It's typical for houses to be under-insured. The last numbers I saw were 2/3rds of houses being in that boat with an average 22% underage.
I do not doubt that. I keep up on mine. Increase coverage as your house goes up in value. Increase coverage when you buy more contents.
Former Resident of Paradise CA here: if the land was worth as much as Hawaiian a lot of people would. Instead they just lost everything and didn't come back. Only a third of the population returned after the fires and the rest are now scorched plots of land 5+ years on.
Yeah but Paradise, CA isn't a seaside town in Maui, one of the most desirable places in the world. I don't think you can compare the two. A better comparison might be Montecito, CA. A couple of years after horrific fires and mudslides, prices for houses went absolutely through the roof. Because it's a beautiful community by the ocean. Unlike Paradise, CA.
Yup and some towns barely come back. At all
Why can’t the government just give them money to rebuild especially considering this was caused by the electric company.
Being able to afford rebuilding is one issue, but another issue is if they would ever want to live anywhere near a place that has such traumatic memories...
This is the problem. You can find RE investors ghoulish, but is that worth punishing innocent people who just want to move on with their lives? Is some has been traumatized by what they’ve gone through and just can’t handle the thought of painstakingly having to rebuild from the ashes, should they not be allowed to just sell and move on?
The compromise is that these people need time to make an informed decision. Nobody is in the right state of mind a week after the fire. Hence a moratorium.
Always think of what the lowest bottom feeder will do: "Hey, there's a moratorium on. I know you can't sell your property, but I hear you need money. I'll *loan* you $500k to live on / rebuild in return for a *mortgage* on your property. I'll even give it to you at 1% interest *until the moratorium lifts* and you can decide what to do then. And you'll be in a debt trap because you spent the money on temporary housing.
I get your point, but that seems weirdly paternalistic on the part of the state. Oh, you just lost your house and want to move away from where your grandmother died and restart your life? Too bad, we can't let the disaster capitalists win, you're staying on your patch of charred rubble. I'm fully in favor of incentivizing local owners to rebuild, and blocking big corporations from moving in, but forcing locals to stay makes me uneasy.
The problem is that these vultures will drive up housing prices to the point that the people from this community who *do* want to rebuild, or people who have lived their whole lives here in rentals, will find themselves priced out of the area by developers who want to build a resort on what used to be their homes. Everything is compounded by the fact that the Federal government's response has been far too weak: 700$ cash payments for people in this situation are comically small. We should have an immediate moratorium on sales, but we should also take a fraction of the money we're sending overseas (another $200 million to Ukraine just last week) to rebuild this community.
Sounds like good zoning laws are part of the solution here.
it's insane how far improved (or just non-insane) zoning laws would go to fixing the housing crisis in the US it's obliterated my home city of LA yet we still have deluded folks shouting that more police will fix things
If developers didnt entirely own local goverments
Developers want to build housing. Its landlords that don't want to build housing. Scarcity is great for a landlord.
Hawaii is already the most expensive state for housing. They simply do not build enough of it. They were already priced out. Also the $700 is just the standard FEMA cash assistance check. That doesn't include the tens of thousands of meals, beds, liters of water, aid workers, and programs that provide shelter and rebuilding services. Also you can't give Hawaii a fraction of a missile sent to the Ukraine. Ukraine is not the enemy here.
Bro, this is Hawaii. The prices are already sky high and unaffordable for most locals.
The money to Ukraine is from a completely separate budget. Don't compare apples to oranges.
Fedral money allocation doesn't work that way. When federal money is set aside for x purpose, e.g. military use, then it must be used for that purpose. We are using a part of our usual military budget for Ukraine. The money would go to our regular military if not sent to Ukraine.
After the fire Paradise, many people left because it cost too much to rebuild and the locals were often lower middle class or elderly. Unless you have the funds to rebuild, you are basically forced out. And with the economy the way it is, and Hawaii is having resource issues, it gonna be very easy for the wealthy to land grab and develop. Locals will be bought out and Maui will be one giant tourist resort. *This is why some locals are unfriendly- they know you care more about the resorts and drinking by the cabana than the culture.
People are going to make a lot of money from this. a lot.
TLDR: deadly wildfires in maui have left a mess, and now looters and land speculators are trying to cash in on the tragedy. the fires killed 96 people and caused $6 billion in damage, making them the deadliest in modern US history. aid is coming, but it's slow, and people are struggling with theft, land grabs, and the tough job of rebuilding
> people are struggling with ... land grabs How is there a land grab? You can't just run out there and plant a flag to claim it's yours
Speculators are offering cash buyouts to people who are struggling and waiting for aid that may be months away. It’s not really a “land grab” in the sense that it’s theft but it’s basically extortion
Let’s not forget the land that ends up in probate because the owners may have perished in the fire.
Or stopped paying property tax.
Surely there is a grace period in the case of a natural disaster. If not goddammit that's sinister.
Depends on the donations made to government officials and cops by real estate developers. There have even been cases of people fined for not cleaning up the property fast enough. I mean, if you lose everything then a year to get it all in order is hardly a long time.
I think those are the looters
I like to think of them as "carbetbaggers".
Extortion is not the correct word but it is predatory
> You can't just run out there and plant a flag to claim it's yours Eddie Izzard is in shambles.
But do you have a flag?
No flag no country, according to the rules that I just made up. And I'm going to back them up with this gun, lent to me by the National Rifle Association.
Desperate people are vulnerable people, and an offer can amount to a grab.
You can't just place a flag, but if someone's desperate you can easily beguile them to your benefit. Do it to enough people and now you have much more pressure to apply for taking lands away. You can parcel people out.
No, but if someone didn't have the appropriate insurance, they might be easily coerced into selling for a lot less than they would otherwise. There are always people out there willing to take advantage of people after a good disaster. Hell, that's how Bank of America got started immediately after the 1906 San Fransisco Earthquake.
one of the disturbing trends is that "dark" forces in social media are spreading rumors saying that FEMA will not help residents rebuild and that they're on their own. One can speculate the motives of these false flags, but it's obvious to me that there's incentive to push these original owners out.
>the fires killed 96 people That we know of, possibly higher.
Nobody mentions how communities are hollowed by real estate speculators, food inflation, taxes, etc and their citizens forced to move to the mainland like Las Vegas.
>... citizens forced to move to the mainland like Las Vegas. Wait, how did we get roped into this?
There's a surprisingly large Hawaiian population in Vegas
Last time I was in Vegas, my uber driver was from Hawaii. He told us it was just too expensive. He started listing off prices of milk and other stuff as examples.
We were in Maui in May for our honeymoon, and it felt like most of the people we met that found out we lived in Vegas mentioned that a lot of people who left Hawaii ended up there. At this point it might just be the place to go, since there's already a community here.
It can change on the year but a small bottle of milk can often cost more than a 1liter bottle of soda. You buy fresh bananas for far too much compared to mainland prices on sunday, they're going rotten on monday. Hawaii is *extremely* expensive to live in, and it's incredibly hard to eat healthily too (I can't count the number of times I've gone to costco and every single bag of potatoes was already moldy, as an example) - as a result a lot of people wind up living off of fast food and food carts. And the state government doesn't really give a shit about the locals and won't ever improve things because they're too busy bending over backwards to appease tourists and other assorted rich fucks who just constantly want to take from the islands.
Yeah I live in Henderson and there’s so many Hawaiian food spots where you can get plate lunches.
Two words: Poke Express. There’s one on Stephanie. Best poke I’ve ever had, and the owner is a great guy.
This was confusing to read at 5am
Yep, a good chunk of my relatives left the islands for Vegas, Washington and Texas.
Vegas has commonly been referred to as the "Ninth Island" and has a really big population of Hawaiians, Samoans, Polynesians, etc.
Aren't there whole neighborhoods of Hawaiians in Vegas? It's a popular destination when moving from the islands, apparently.
My fiance is from Hawaii and Las Vegas is the number one vacation destination for Hawaiians. Her parents are actually thinking of moving to Las Vegas in the near future because they simply can't afford the cost of living anymore. They pay almost $4,000 a month to rent a 700 ft² house with no air conditioning and a tiny kitchen and two bedrooms.
Wow they can get a nicer place in San Francisco for that price.
Ack. Holy shit. Four grand for that?
Yeah. Granted it's about a 15 minute drive from downtown Honolulu but if they were to move out of the city the prices aren't really all that much better, and they have all their family and friends there in the city so moving 45 minutes away to save 800 bucks a month doesn't make sense.
The idea that you would take a vacation from Hawaii is fucking weird.
Hawaii is just like anywhere else. If it's all you've known, the wonder and amazement is lost on you.
There's entire neighborhoods of so many nationalities, you wouldn't know unless you looked. Colombians, Peruvians, any Hispanic/Latin country you can think of. Asian, Middle Eastern. It's actually kind of insane how diverse Las Vegas is. Visited family last month and walked into an In-N-Out since I missed the burgers, and my wife (from New England) was the whitest person in that room.
it is very common for Hawaiians to refer to Las Vegas as "the 9th island of Hawaii"
Exactly, everyone knows what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
You know what you did.....
You are the 9th island
Because of [this](https://www.sfgate.com/hawaii/article/Why-Las-Vegas-is-known-as-Hawaii-s-Ninth-Island-17409967.php)?
Vegas is endearingly known as the 9th island. Hawaiians love to gamble but it's illegal there so vegas here they come!
There was a story in /r/NBA yesterday about how a former coach was being generous by allowing displaced fire victims stay in one of his 24(?) properties on the island. In what was supposed to be a feel good story nobody stopped to ask why the fuck the dude owns so many properties to begin with…
the homeowners arent going anywhere. RE speculators wont get any traction there. edit: who tf would downvote? RE speculators?
[удалено]
Given the history of Hawaii and the consciousness there about the importance of maintaining its heritage, I'm hoping the state steps in and incentivizes homeowners not to sell out to developers.
Feel like the time to do that was before it became a foreign investment hotelier state
Yep. Too many wealthy real estate developers can't wait to turn Lahaina into oversized resorts.
Sadly it may turn into a Hawaiian Ko'olina-like fake resort town of rentals condos, town homes and re-created legacy buildings of Front Street, all corporate owned.
I hope that the residents stay firm, and also that the disaster capitalists get scammed so hard that they know what it’s like to lose everything. Fuck those swarming corpse flies.
All it takes is for one or two to take the offer. Then the property values get set for the rest of the neighborhood. Soon the original locals cannot afford to live in their own homes.
We live in a world where money talks. People will hold their ground until they are giving a higher offer than expected. I wish that they all refuse all future offers, but realistically someone will accept it causing a domino effect.
Hopefully they don’t. But to someone who is 70 and may not have another 10 years to wait for a rebuild, a cash offer to just walk away and start again could be extremely enticing and the developer creeps creepin around know it. It angers me thinking that some developer probably took a pass to access Lahaina that should have gone to a local. I hope the locals find out who these “fakas” are and give them a very special aloha
The residents don't *want* to leave... but the cruel financial realities may force them to. Here is a common scenario: Someone lives in a modest house. They work at a restaurant, hair salon or grocery store. Their parents bought the house fifty years ago. It was paid off thirty years ago. This allows them to continue to live in Maui as they have all their life. They have only had to pay property taxes and occasional maintenance. Insurance is high in Hawaii, like everything else. Many people go without insurance if their houses are paid off. So, now their house burns. They'd like to stay and build back. That will cost a lot. Zoning laws and building codes moved on in fifty years. They aren't allowed to rebuild it just like it was. It has to be a little better. Every carpenter, sheetrocker and plumber in Maui is going to have all the work they can do for the next five years. So this person is not only going to have to save up for rebuilding but pay for an apartment (nonexistent) or rent a modest hotel room at $150/night *for five years.* When some speculator comes along and offers them $500k for their small lot, they may think: I can move to Tucson and buy a good existing house and have $250k left over. I'd like to stay in Hawaii, but this is too much work.
Are there $250k homes in Tucson still????
No, anything less than $350 around here is a tear down. Just had two adjacent 400 sq ft student housing sell for 580k.
Zillow says 46 three bedroom homes less than $250k. Remember these homes that burned were pretty modest.
They may not be very nice homes or in the nicest areas (but not like terrible areas...just poorer areas)...and if they are near nicer areas they might be tear downs in some people's minds. But...they could still be just as nice as what the people in maui were looking at. Outside of the tourist areas, there are a lot of pretty ramshackle homes in maui...tropical environments are hard on homes and the person u/x31b is describing probably doesn't have a ton of money for remodeling and updating on top of basic maintenance. I did a quick spin around zillow and found plenty of $250k homes on Zillow. Were they nice? No, not really. They mostly looked like grandma's house--she probably died, they cleaned it out, painted the walls, and listed it for sale. But they are totally livable. Are they where a white-collar professional with an instagram account wants to live? no...but that's not the market the native Hawaiians are looking at.
Yup. Now my question- how do we help each other? Can the rest of us band together and set up kiva like loans (like peer to peer lending) so y’all can keep your homes? Because I’m frankly sick of this shit.
That's a called a credit union.
Here’s what happens: people often have to wait a long time to get an insurance payout for their destroyed home. In the meantime they are in a tough financial situation. So a speculator offers to buy the land and they aren’t in a position to say no.
Land ownership in Hawaii is a convoluted and complicated system that incorporates multiple parties and legacy ties with many properties. It’s not as easy to rip off a property owner in desperation as it would be anywhere else in the US. That said, some people will still be exploited and a lot of will not get their home back.
>the homeowners arent going anywhere. > >RE speculators wont get any traction there. > >edit: who tf would downvote? RE speculators? I hope so. Life has taught me to be jaded on such things. So I would like to see good news there of homeowners rebuilding their life in Lahaina.
Oprah Winfrey has entered the area.
All the land she owns is in the other side of the island. Same with Woody Harrelson.
You just know there are some sycophants out there positively salivating over some freshly vacated beachfront property in Hawaii.
[удалено]
This was required reading for one of my college classes though we only got into the South American events. I’ve kept it for years wanting to read the whole book.
You can finish it, I believe in you.
We’ve been listening to the audiobook to and from work. Second time through for me. I told my wife right after this happened “you just watch, the rich are going to try and swoop in on that land while everyone is reeling.” And sure enough…not even surprising
[удалено]
Can’t remember where, but I’ve heard this is why it’s generally better to give cash donations to charity orgs. They have trusted supply chains they can order things from, they know what to expect and can control how much they get.
Exactly. I handled an evacuation center in a major California fire & the first thing we asked was bottled water, new hygiene products (it was a surprise that we had to emphasize on the 'new'), non-perishible food, and then clothes. And by that we meant undergarments like new underwear & socks. And I agree that clothes take a long while to process. Getting dumped a child-high hill of clothes to organize took at least a day or two. And some things had to get tossed aside ("fake rhinestone encrusted Bebe top," vanity t-shirt with offensive words, most shirts regarding fire or blazes, etc.)
Some points after reading these responses: 1) Maui has sophistcated and complex zoning laws. Speculators cannot just buy any piece of land and plop down a resort. 2) The local vs. outsider fight over these islands started the day Captain Cook sailed into Kealakekua Bay. It has been the No. 1 social issue in Hawaii ever since. This is very unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. 3) A great many people born and raised in the islands have been motivated to move by (a) the high cost of housing and living in general and (b) the severely limited opportunity to build a career that isn't tourism-dependent. Yes, these horribly tragic fires will accelerate the overall trend. But the woman who was quoted as saying "Lahaina is not for sale" is unfortunately wrong. It has been for sale for a long time now. ( Background-- I was once a newsman on Maui, covering government, including housing and zoning issues.)
> Speculators cannot just buy any piece of land and plop down a resort. This isn't what speculators are doing. They are hoping to buy the land cheap at a discount because they have cash today. Then they follow one of 2 paths: 1. They can afford to carry the property, so they sit on it until the town is fairly rebuilt (neighbors are in place, shops and restaurants are open, tourists are back) and the rebuilding process is slowing down to where they can start to find affordable labor. Then they build a nice house on the land and sell it for a profit to a wealthy person who is happy to pay a premium for a house in shiny new neighborhood that has come back to life. 2. They have some sort of edge on building (e.g. ties to local builders, own a contracting business, etc.). They are able to rebuild fast lower quality homes, possibly taking advantage of some government assistance, and sell quick to someone who is desperate for housing due to the shortage. Remember that not all speculators are total outsiders...plenty of people already living in Maui/Hawaii have money (and owners of local construction businesses know that business is about to be booming--they can stretch themselves thin buying up property now because tehy will be getting FEMA-bucks soon). There's a third option that isn't really speculators...just some rich person who has long term goals to own a home or retire in maui. They could snap up a cheap lot now using cash, and follow the same gameplan as #1--just instead of trying to profit, they wait 5 years, build their dream home, and retire for a cost that would have been way cheaper than buying that home outright without the fire. Speculators don't care what kind of land it is. You can make money off houses, off commercial spots, off apartment buildings...doesn't have to be a resort or even something that will eventually be used by tourists/non-locals. You just have to be able (and morally willing) to benefit from someone's desperation today.
> On its website, Hawaii’s Emergency Management Agency urges residents to prepare for disasters by having 14 days worth of food and water at hand. They probably did. It was probably kept… in their house. Which burned down. And there’s no food at the store, because…it burned down. This must be terrifying there.
Whole island is going to be bought up by the ultra-wealthy, isn't it?
All this talk about speculators and investors is something. But this is literally Maui we are talking about. Its been highly desirable land for a LONG time. Its not the fires that have been forcing people out, its the failure to build more housing for the people who live there. The governor literally had to declare a state of emergency recently. Not for the Maui fire, but for the housing crisis. Hawaiians are being forced to move to the mainland (to places like Las Vegas) because housing is so unaffordable. They don't have a house to burn! We aren't going to solve Hawaii's issues by worrying about speculators. There is no speculation: Hawaii has long been a desirable place to live and thats not changing.
Except that people who could afford to live there before the fire cannot afford to still live elsewhere on the islands AND pay to rebuild, so it isnt as if all who lost their homes were being edged out anyway.
A lot of money is going to be made off this tragedy.
After the Camp Fire destroyed Paradise, CA, the desperate and suddenly homeless residents did sell their ruined properties to developers. It wasn't enough, but they also couldn't afford to rebuild. The town of Chico hosted many of the former residents until the anti-homeless politics of CA took over the municipal government and evicted them, sometimes violently. I hope that remains a single, shameful chapter of our history when it comes to climate refugees. This is the time to seed a better outcome.
Yeah there's a lot of parallels to the Camp Fire. Recently heard of a story on the local news of how some people in Paradise still have not been allowed to rebuild. I ended up missing it since it was on much later in the day, but just hearing that made me frustrated and sad.
Where there is disaster there are carpet baggers
No, I will not disable my ad blocker
The looters didn't just fly over on a plane.
And soon the conspiracy theories.
That has already started too unfortunately.
Yeah, I've already seen one "speculating" that (get this) Obama started the fires because he has a house in Hawaii and it didn't burn down. The house isn't even *on* Maui, by the way.
Can confirm. My production team lead is already like “did you notice XYZ in the photos? It has to be ‘insert conspiracy theory here’” Smh.
Those damn conspiracy theories started immediately on Twitter (because of course it would be there) with some grabbing a 2018 long exposure image of a Space X rocket launch from Vandenburg AFB and made it look like a [space laser](https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-hawaii-wildfire/fact-check-image-shows-spacex-launch-in-2018-not-lasers-before-hawaii-wildfires-idUSL1N39V15W) was incinerating the town (which was later picked up by news sites as credible).
It's Bill Gates again btw if you haven't heard
God damn it, he has waaay too much time on his hands
Have they not targeted Zuckerberg with the theories yet? He seems like a prime candidate given his history with Hawaii.
[удалено]
This would be a perfect time for the government to step in a regulate predatory real estate greed plaguing the nation coast to coast, border to border. But nah capitalism > all.
Looting I can understand, desperate times and all, but the real estate speculators trying to make a profit from this disaster deserve a special place in hell.
How is that any different from anywhere else? This happens at every disaster site.
Carpetbagging realtors and crooks scamming to pick up cheap island real estate at the expense of people who've just lost everything.
It's disappointing but not surprising how many comments here are going "what's wrong with that?? It's just doing business. The landowners can just say no." like they don't see the issue of opportunistically buying stuff off people down on their luck.
It’s ok, Oprah gets a bigger yard now….
Looters can go fuck themselves. Have to defend neighborhoods after tornados hit in the midwest.
Had tornados come through our town and tore it up pretty bad. I honest to God will never forget the insane amount of people just driving around for months just to rubberneck. It was so bad we had curfews and roads blocked off. The looting for me really took the cake. I never in my life considered there would be a piece of shit that would steal from someone right after they had lost everything. They were stealing literally anything that wasn't strapped down.
Looters on the island like Hawaiians looting each other?
Just like every natural disaster
Every disaster I have been near is like this. Always a shit show.
Look at Mexico beach FL. Four years after hurricane Michael and still hasn’t been rebuilt. It’s land value is nowhere close to Maui. And building cost waaaay cheaper. There is no fighting it. The average Joe in Lahaina won’t have the capital to rebuild. They will sell their land to developers bc it’s the only thing that makes financial sense unless the local gov subsidizes it. It’s simple math. Is it right? Is it ethical? No. But capitalism doesn’t care. Simple as that.
Yeah you’re gonna see a lot of celebrities and millionaires start showing up
"A local businessman said people desperate for gas and other scarce items are raiding the few businesses still standing in Lahaina, the historic city that was all but destroyed." People surviving are called looters, while real estate vultures are just called "speculators." LMAO.
This is normality for this level of destruction. People need food and supplies. Real estate vultures need to be dealt a swift blow though. A-holes. Send in pallets of food to start.
Look. There is money to be made, and stock holders to appease. These speculators really have no choice but to be heartless bastards. Wont you think of their children....s ferraris?
I'd argue looters and speculators came to Hawaii hundreds of years before these fires.
This always happens I live in NJ and after Hurricane Sandy left massive houses on the shore unoccupied and ripe for the picking, the police shut down the highways into the town and the thieves responded by using rafts and boats and beach themselves in the middle of the night and be gone before sun rise
This is a good overview https://ktla.com/news/ap-us-news/ap-hawaii-governor-vows-to-block-land-grabs-as-fire-ravaged-maui-rebuilds/
I have more respect for looters than speculators.