This burnt-out 3-bedroom in Torrance sold for over $1 million. Welcome to California's housing market

[Zorro]

There’s a dilapidated house near my apartment complex in Torrance. Its doors and windows are covered by plywood boards and “No Trespassing” signs. Its frontyard is choked by dry, shin-high weeds. Chunks of its roof are missing.

Its listing on multiple real estate websites read: “This property has Fire Damage. BOARDED UP! … Do Not Enter or Occupy Property. No Interior Showings!”

Photos of the three-bedroom house showed one room with a smoke-blackened popcorn ceiling, and a small kitchen with vinyl flooring darkened by what looked to be a thick layer of mold or dirt.

The empty 1,140-square-foot home at the busy corner of Lenore Street and Anza Avenue, which was built in 1955 and damaged in a house fire two years ago, was snapped up in a probate sale last June.

$1.08 million.

Of course a fire-charred tear-down sold for more than a million bucks. That’s California’s miserable housing market for you.

https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2026-05-19/la-me-california-newsletter-2026-05-19-million-dollar-fire-house-torrance

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Thank you, my dear Zorro, for your very timely post.

I have driven past this house many times on my way to various doctors and such, and I see this every time.

It's a shame.

[CoopersDad]

3. So glad you're out and about again!

California DUers Rock!

[3catwoman3]

2. That's nuts

[sdfernando]

4. Looks like a decent sized lot

The building will be torn down and the entire lot will be redeveloped with condos. I'm sure the investors will make tons more than what they paid for it. It really sucks!

[highplainsdem]

8. Only 5600 sq ft. 1/8 acre.

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/4623-Lenore-St_Torrance_CA_90503_M22577-45804

[AZ8theist]

9. Doubtful

Looking at the neighborhood, it's nothing but single family homes.
Not likely zoned for condos, but who knows? Grease enough palms and almost anything can happen.

Every single house in that area is valued at $1.25M and up. Some at $2 mill. You could tear it down, build a new one for $750K, and still make money on it.

Regardless, yes it sucks. I would love to live in California but the RE is out of control. I could sell my house in Arizona and I might have enough for a down payment in Cali., but that's about it!!!!

[sdfernando]

19. Sold my house

In San Diego last year for a bit less than 1mil. 2 story 1750Sqft on a 6000sqft corner lot. It was built and bought in 1977 for 60k. Took that $$$ and early retirement and moved to Spain....it was a good choice.

[Bumbles]

5. That's obscene!

[senseandsensibility]

6. That reminds me of a listing for a house in the SF Bay Area probably forty years ago

It sold for about three hundred thousand (this was 40 years ago) although there was nothing there except four poles in the ground, which I guess at one time held up a covered parking area. The rest of the lot looked like your photo above.

[OGBuzz]

7. In Texas $1 million buys you a 4,000 sq. ft. mansion with a bit of land to go with it.

[gilligan]

11. Yeah

But it’s still Texas.

[OGBuzz]

14. LOL! Right you are.

[BadgerMom]

16. But property tax on it is killer.

My husband had a contract that brought us to Fort Worth from Southern California. I’d look at prices for homes around the DFW area and be amazed at how much further your money went in Texas compared to California. Of course, it was still Texas. My husband responded when I said something about it with a comparison. The difference in property tax bills for our lovely home in California and those far less expensive Texas homes was startling! California taxes were far less. (I’m sorry. This was in 2012. I no longer remember the precise numbers.)

Similarly, auto registration in California was far less. No state income tax seems lovely, but government must be funded. Texas makes up for not having a state income tax by higher taxes in other areas.

That said, I realize Prop 13 is likely the reason that California property taxes are less than those of Texas. I’d rather still have the services that were eliminated when Prop 13 passed. That might have kept California real estate at lower levels as well as providing other services.

[AllaN01Bear]

10. Hem

Waiting for the bubble to pop.

[BigmanPigman]

12. Over 1 1/2 years several condos in my complex have been on the market

Nobody is buying anything here. The market in San Diego has flat-lined. Some were bought by those greedy companies that give you cash overnight, then the new owners update them, hoping for a huge profit. It's backfired. They are just sitting there, empty. No one will touch them.

[EndlessMaze]

13. The prices are more reasonable inland where I live.

But still high.

[BurnDoubt]

15. What do you suppose would account for such a...

disparity in home values?
In 1954, in the center of California, on recently re-zoned farmland in World-Class Agriculture Country, My Grandparents purchased a three-bedroom home for $8000,00 on a piece of land they bought for $495.00. It was do-able with two Union Jobs, although the end-of-the-month menu most often included Ham Hocks and Navy Bean Soup or “Shit On A Shingle”.
In Sacramento today rents are around $2200.00 a month for a studio or one-bedroom apartment.
Most of the guys who own those rentals may never even see the properties as long as they own them.
The people who could be investing in new-home construction are investing in existing properties so they can raise the rents and let the properties fall into dis-repair and then take a “loss”, passing them on to the next “investors”.
The “private sector" has no interest increasing housing stock because they can make money by ”scarce-ifying” the existing inventory.
This is another issue that “The Invisible Hand” will NEVER solve, because it is simply not who they are.

[calimary]

17. Just TOTALLY out-to-lunch!

One-point-oh-eight MILLION?!?!? W. T. F. ?

O. M. G.

[LoisB]

18. Crazy.