Los Angeles Braces For More Firestorms As Death Toll Hits 24. Credit: Benjamin Fanjoy / Bloomberg

Danielle Neal is a fourth-generation resident of Altadena who saw the house she grew up in and the home she rented burn down in the wildfires that swept through Los Angeles County.

Neal, 30, said her aunt and uncle, who lived in the family home, have already been deluged by parties looking to purchase the still smoldering ruins at a steep discount. 

“There’s not a lot of compassion,” Neal said of the speculators. “It feels like a version of looting.” 

Real estate vultures are circling the middle-class community of Altadena and other burned out parts of Los Angeles, hungry to turn a profit from fire victims still struggling with where they’ll live and how they’ll rebuild their homes and lives. Investors are reaching out to people like Neal’s family, as well as to local real estate agents who’ve fielded inquiries from across the country. 

Neal’s fear, and that of many in her community, is that the wildfires will change the character of a neighborhood that had long been home […]

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