In Pacific Palisades as of October 2026, roughly 150 lots were available, selling at about 32 a month, with a median lot price around $1.8 million and land trading near $270 per square foot, down roughly 30 to 50 percent from pre-fire levels. Of about 4,200 destroyed properties, around 700 had changed hands and about 2,200 original owners had neither sold nor filed to rebuild. The right answer depends on your insurance proceeds, your land value and your carrying costs, and for many owners it is genuinely close.
- Palisades lots available
- About 150October 2026, selling ~32/month
- Median Palisades lot
- About $1.8 millionAround $270 per sq ft of land
- Down from pre-fire
- 30 to 50%Depending on location
- Owners who did neither
- About 2,200Of roughly 4,200 destroyed
What it costs
| What | Typical Los Angeles range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Palisades, lots available October 2026 | About 150 | Roughly 5 months of supply |
| Palisades, median lot sale price | About $1.8 million | Individual sales $50 to $500+ per sq ft |
| Palisades, land price per sq ft | About $270 | Down from ~$278 in Q3 2025 |
| Palisades, properties changed hands | About 700 of 4,200 | Roughly 17 percent |
| Palisades, permits filed | About 1,850 properties | Including ~500 by post-fire buyers |
| Altadena 91001, typical lot price | About $510,000 | Three months to November 2025 |
| Altadena 91001, lots sold | 80 | Versus 0 the prior year |
| Investor share of lots sold | 40 to 44% | Palisades, Altadena and Malibu, Q3 2025 |
Read the Altadena caveat first
The Palisades figures above are from October 2026 and are reasonably current. The Altadena figures are from a late-2025 snapshot, and we could not find comparable 2026 Altadena lot data that we trust.
You cannot transfer Palisades numbers to Altadena. The two land markets are an order of magnitude apart, with a typical Palisades lot around $1.8 million against roughly $510,000 in Altadena. If you are weighing this decision in Altadena, get current comparable sales from a broker rather than relying on any published figure, including ours.
The four numbers you actually need
- Your total insurance proceeds, including dwelling, extended replacement cost, code upgrade coverage and contents
- The real rebuild cost for the house you would actually build, line-itemed against a design, not a per-square-foot guess
- What your lot would sell for today, from current comparable sales in your specific pocket
- Your carrying costs for the 18 to 30 months a rebuild takes: mortgage, property tax, insurance, and housing yourself once living-expense coverage runs out
Everything else in this decision is sentiment, and sentiment is a legitimate input. But run the four numbers first so you know what the sentiment is costing or saving you.
The arithmetic, in the order that matters
Start with the gap. Rebuild cost minus insurance proceeds is what you would have to fund out of pocket to end up with a new house. Published analyses have put the average Palisades shortfall near $1.5 million, and practitioners describe roughly half the rebuild cost falling on the owner as a normal outcome. We have not verified those figures and your own number may be very different.
Then price the alternative. Lot sale proceeds plus your insurance settlement, minus what you still owe, is what you would walk away with. Against that, set what an equivalent finished home costs to buy elsewhere today.
The comparison most people skip is the third one: rebuilding gets you a brand-new, fully code-compliant, fire-hardened house, which is a materially different asset from the one that burned and from most of what you could buy. That is worth something real, and it is worth more if you intend to stay for a long time.
What the market is telling you
Three things stand out in the Palisades data. First, lot values are down 30 to 50 percent from pre-fire levels, so selling now means accepting a discount that the land may recover later. Second, inventory has normalised to about five months, close to the pre-fire range, so the feared flood of distressed lot sales did not arrive. Third, and most telling, about 2,200 of roughly 4,200 owners have neither sold nor filed to rebuild.
That last group is the real story. More than half of affected owners are still deciding, nearly two years on. If you are in that group you are not behind, you are in the majority.
Investors bought 40 to 44 percent of lots sold in Palisades, Altadena and Malibu in late 2025, and about 80 percent of investor-purchased lots had a former home on them. They are buying because they think the land is worth more than the current price. That is information, though not necessarily information that applies to your situation.
When selling is clearly right
- The gap between proceeds and rebuild cost is larger than you can fund without taking on debt you do not want
- You were planning to move within five years anyway
- The lot is steep, geologically sensitive or has access problems that push the rebuild cost well above the area norm
- The process itself is costing you more than the money, which is a real and sufficient reason
- You can buy an equivalent finished home elsewhere for less than your net rebuild cost
When rebuilding is clearly right
- You have strong coverage, including extended replacement cost and code upgrade coverage above the 10 percent minimum
- You hold a long-standing Proposition 13 assessment, which rebuilding on the same parcel generally preserves and buying elsewhere does not
- Your lot is flat, accessible and straightforward, so your rebuild sits at the lower end of the cost range
- You intend to stay for a decade or more, over which a new hardened house earns back its premium
- The land is worth materially more to you as a home than its current discounted market price
Where we can and cannot help
We can give you a defensible rebuild number: a line-item cost against a specific design for your specific lot, with the site conditions priced rather than assumed. That is the number most of these decisions turn on and the one most owners are missing.
We can also tell you plainly when a lot is expensive to build on, which is the kind of thing a seller's agent has no incentive to raise.
We are not brokers on these transactions and we do not take a commission either way. If you want current land comparables, get a broker who works your specific pocket. We will happily work alongside one.
Los Angeles County figures, reviewed 2026-10-29 by America General Contractors, California contractor licence CSLB 1083262. Planning ranges, not a quote, and not legal advice. We confirm the current rules for your parcel before anything is drawn.
Questions
How many people have actually sold?
In Pacific Palisades, about 700 of roughly 4,200 destroyed properties had changed ownership as of October 2026, around 17 percent. About 1,850 properties had permit applications filed, including roughly 500 by people who bought after the fire. The rest, about 2,200 owners, had done neither.
Are lot prices recovering?
Palisades land was trading around $270 per square foot in late 2026, down slightly from about $278 in Q3 2025, with values 30 to 50 percent below pre-fire levels. Inventory has normalised to roughly five months. That is a stabilising market rather than a recovering one.
Does rebuilding protect my property tax base?
Rebuilding a comparable structure on the same parcel after a disaster generally preserves your existing Proposition 13 assessment, while buying a different home does not. On a long-held property that difference can be very large annually. Confirm your specific situation with the county assessor.
Should I wait?
Waiting has real costs: carrying costs continue, living-expense coverage expires, construction costs have not fallen, and insurance claim deadlines run. It also has real benefits if land values recover. There is no general answer, which is why the four numbers matter more than anyone's opinion.
Can you help me decide?
We can price the rebuild properly, which is usually the missing number. We will not tell you what to do with your home, and we would be suspicious of any contractor who did.
