On August 12, the Pacific Palisades crossed a number that made headlines: 1,000 homes now under active construction since the January 2025 fire, according to the Pali Rebuild Map, the parcel-by-parcel tracker built by Palisades native Kevin Pazirandeh and hosted exclusively by the Palisadian-Post. The milestone landed the same week Palisades Village reopened its doors, and the two stories ran together in local coverage as proof the neighborhood had turned a corner.
A day later, the same tracker reported a second number that got far less attention: 35. That's how many of those homes have actually received a Certificate of Occupancy, the LADBS inspection sign-off that means a family can legally move back in.
A thousand starts and thirty-five finishes are not contradictory numbers. They're the same rebuild, measured at two different points in a pipeline that takes far longer to clear than the press releases suggest. For anyone evaluating a Palisades purchase this fall, whether that means a fire-cleared lot, a home mid-construction, or a surviving property that never burned, the gap between those two figures is the single most useful thing to understand about where this market actually stands.
What the Headline Numbers Don't Show
The Pali Rebuild Map tracks four stages: permits submitted, permits issued, construction started, and Certificates of Occupancy issued. Comparing two recent snapshots shows how unevenly progress moves through that pipeline.
Snapshot Date | Permits Submitted | Permits Issued | Homes Under Construction | Certificates of Occupancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
July 10, 2026 | 1,628 | 1,088 | 905 | 27 |
August 13, 2026 | 1,700+ | n/a | 1,000+ | 35 |
In the five weeks between those two readings, roughly 100 more homes broke ground. Only eight more crossed the finish line. Every stage of the funnel is filling faster than the one after it empties, which is exactly what you'd expect fifteen to twenty months into a rebuild that typically takes fourteen to twenty-four months from permit issuance to move-in, based on estimates from contractors working the burn area this spring. The backlog isn't a sign the rebuild is stalling. It's a sign the rebuild is still early, no matter how full the construction sites look.
Pazirandeh has explained how the city's totals differ from the rebuild map's narrower count. Writing about his methodology, he noted that municipal dashboards report broader permit totals, while the map also tracks construction starts and Certificates of Occupancy. The city's broader figures include grading, electrical, demolition, and repair permits layered onto the same address. The narrower new-construction count tracks homes under construction and is over 1,000.
Why the First Certificate of Occupancy Wasn't a Homeowner
The first Palisades home to receive its Certificate of Occupancy did so on November 21, 2025, at 915 N Kagawa Street. It was built by Thomas James Homes as a showcase property, a project the builder had already planned for that address rather than a displaced family's return. That detail matters more than it first appears. The earliest movers through a bottlenecked pipeline tend to be the parties with construction relationships, pre-mobilized crews, and no insurance settlement to wait on. Everyone else is still further back in line.
That pattern has implications for three kinds of buyers looking at the Palisades right now.
Owner-occupants planning to rebuild are working against the same fourteen-to-twenty-four-month clock as everyone else, and the Coastal Zone review that covers much of the neighborhood adds time most other Los Angeles rebuilds don't face. Anyone underwriting a purchase on the assumption that a permit in hand means a finished home within a year should build in a longer runway.
Investors and developers have been active since the fire. Redfin's analysis of the 90272 ZIP code found that investors purchased 40.3% of lots sold in the third quarter of 2025, and the firm counted 309 vacant lots listed for sale in the three months ending that November. Builders with locked-in contractor capacity, like Thomas James Homes, are structurally positioned to finish faster than an individual homeowner sourcing a general contractor from scratch. That's a real advantage, but it's an advantage in construction logistics, not in market timing. The completion bottleneck applies to everyone waiting on the same inspectors and the same subcontractor pool.
Buyers who want a home now are looking at a market where finished inventory is still scarce almost two years after the fire. Only 35 rebuilt homes exist to move into as of mid-August. Surviving, unaffected properties are absorbing that demand, and pricing on those homes has generally held or firmed rather than softened, since anyone who wants to live in the Palisades today without a multi-year wait has a genuinely small pool of standing homes to choose from.
The Palisades Isn't Recovering Evenly
Rebuild activity also isn't distributed evenly across the neighborhood, and that unevenness traces back to the same investor-versus-owner split. In Marquez Knolls, investment groups purchased 17 fire-damaged lots in a single month during the heaviest period of post-fire land trading, a concentration that reshaped who controls the pace of rebuilding on those streets. In the Riviera, by contrast, few lots went to outside investors because homeowners moved quickly to buy back their own properties using insurance proceeds, keeping ownership, and rebuild timing, in the hands of the families who lived there before.
That split matters for anyone comparing neighborhoods within the Palisades rather than comparing the Palisades to somewhere else. A lot in a submarket where builders are land-banking and waiting for costs to settle will sit vacant longer than a lot where an owner is racing to get home. Pricing a purchase off the wrong assumption about who controls the parcel next door is one of the more avoidable mistakes in this market.
Lot prices themselves reflect that same variation. Recent listings have ranged from roughly $1.1 million for smaller, less-positioned parcels to $3.5 million or more for oversized view lots in the Riviera and the Bluffs, based on spring 2026 market reporting. Size, topography, view, and rebuild permit status all move that number independently, which means a per-square-foot comparison across two Palisades lots can be misleading unless clearance and permit stage are also accounted for.
What This Means If You're Deciding Now
None of this means the Palisades rebuild is behind schedule. Historic-standard recovery from a disaster this size typically takes years to show visible results, and permits here have moved roughly three times faster than the pre-fire baseline pace, according to city figures cited by CalMatters. Pazirandeh himself has said the rebuild has reached a scale that makes it unlikely to stall, and that completions should surge through late 2026 and into 2027 as the current wave of framed homes reaches final inspection.
What it does mean is that the two headline numbers, homes started and homes finished, describe different markets. If you're weighing a rebuild lot, price the eighteen-to-twenty-four-month runway into your plans rather than the more optimistic permit pace alone. If you're weighing a standing home, recognize that its scarcity value is tied directly to how few finished alternatives exist. Understanding which number applies to your specific purchase is the difference between an informed offer and a surprised escrow.
If you're comparing a Palisades lot against a standing home, or trying to read what a specific street's rebuild pace means for resale timing, our team works through that math with buyers and sellers across the Pacific Palisades market regularly, alongside the broader buying process considerations unique to a post-disaster transaction.
Frequently Asked Questions
If a lot already has a permit, how long until it's a livable home? Based on contractor estimates from spring 2026, the realistic span from permit issuance to move-in runs fourteen to twenty-four months for most single-family rebuilds, with Coastal Zone or hillside geotechnical review adding time on many Palisades parcels specifically.
Does a permit issued mean construction has actually started? Not necessarily. As of August 13, 2026, roughly 1,700 permit applications had been submitted, but the Pali Rebuild Map counted just over 1,000 homes actually under construction, meaning several hundred approved projects hadn't yet broken ground.
Are all parts of the Palisades rebuilding at the same pace? No. Submarkets with heavier investor purchasing, such as Marquez Knolls, are moving on a different timeline than areas like the Riviera, where homeowner buybacks have kept more parcels in the hands of returning families.
Is a standing, unaffected home worth a premium right now? Pricing on surviving properties has generally held firm given how few completed rebuilds currently exist as finished alternatives. That scarcity is a market condition tied to the current completion count, not a permanent feature of the neighborhood.
Every Palisades transaction right now carries its own permit history, lot documentation, and construction timeline. If you're trying to make sense of what a specific property's paperwork actually tells you, The Salazar | Bunnell Group is ready to walk through it with you. Partner With Our Expert Team.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
