Rapacious real estate interests have descended on the miles of Malibu beachfront devastated in the January L.A. wildfires, selectively acquiring properties for ambitious luxury residential development projects, and so I wrote on the respected national architecture and planning urban website, Common Edge, and abridged here: .
The land grabs and speculation also are happening in the two other communities ravaged by the fires: the more modest Altadena and the pricier Pacific Palisades. Respectfully, though, neither has the international investor interest and millionaire moxie of Malibu’s beach, varying in clusters totaling some 300 properties, ranging in prices up to $100 million.
Among those identified assembling parcels on what they are obviously anticipating will be buildable sites are arguably the two wealthiest men in New Zealand, brothers Nick and Mar Mowbray. Their fortune is estimated at $2 billion and is primarily based on producing plastic toys in a factory they own in China.
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Confirmed in recent California real estate filings accessed by Malibu resident Jennifer Van Lear, the brothers, acting through their parent corporation, paid $65 million for nine properties and, according to a realtor newsletter and local public radio station KBUU, are acquiring at least four more for their factory-built homes.
Nick Mowbray reportedly disclosed in public remarks in New Zealand that their Malibu development will be innovative and of world significance: AI-planned and -programmed in Milan for robotic assemblage at their Zuru Tech factory in China, packaged for the public by a customer relations firm in Kolkata, India, to be shipped to the U.S. and sited on platforms above the Malibu sand.
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The initial land purchases appear to be in the less-exclusive but still-expensive section of the beach known as La Costa, where mostly dingbat housing, now ash, edged the Pacific Coast Highway and extended out over the sand. Before the fire, the modest structures sold for up to $10 million, location being the prime value.
Further west is the section randomly ravaged in the fires known as “Billionaire Beach,” with properties selling from $10 million up to $100 million, in a focused, competitive real estate market considered a blood sport by locals.
As for rentals, one of tech billionaire Larry Ellison’s surviving dozen properties was listed at $65,000 a month. (It could not be confirmed that this is where Elon Musk reportedly couch surfed this summer.) Not incidentally, Ellison’s holdings were saved thanks to a privately contracted fire brigade, as were the homes of several A-list celebrities, which now stand exposed next to ruins.
Malibu has known such scams in the past in the buying and selling of property, the city’s prime economic activity.
The ambitious plan featuring prefab concrete housing seems, if not fanciful to those involved in the local rebuild effort, certainly questionable. Some consider it just another get-rich real estate scam to draw in the greedy gullible, where the original investors will sell at a nice profit and return beneath their rock down under. To be sure, Malibu has known such scams in the past in the buying and selling of property, the city’s prime economic activity.
For the full article, https://commonedge.org/letter-from-malibu-land-grabs-and-speculation-amid-the-ruins/
