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Aug. 18, 2023 - Epoch Times

10:44

Vulture Investors Frenzy To Buy Properties Burned Down in Hawaii

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	As I'm sure you've seen by now, the wildfires which hit the island of Maui were just devastating.
	With, just as of right now, 111 people confirmed to have been killed in the blazes.
	About 1,000 people are still missing, and as you can see from the photos up on your screen, there was an entire community which has just been razed to the ground.
	However, while this is a great tragedy, there are some people who are seeing this as a phenomenal opportunity in real estate.
	Specifically, one of the hardest hit areas by the fire was a centuries-old town called Lahaina, which has a population of about 13,000 people.
	The fire there destroyed nearly every single building.
	And the people who have had their homes burned to the ground over in Lahaina have reported getting phone calls from alleged investors and alleged realtors who are looking to scoop up these properties.
	For instance, one Hawaii resident posted a video online, which eventually went viral, wherein she slammed these individuals who are trying to make a tidy profit amidst tragedy.
	Now, I can't play that video because of copyright reasons, but I will read to you what she said in the video.
	Quote, I am so frustrated with investors and realtors calling the families who lost their homes, offering to buy their land.
	How dare you do that to our community right now?
	If you are a victim and they are calling you, please get their business name so we can put them on blast.
	Further along in that video, that woman mentioned that she has been hearing from multiple different families that she personally knows that they are receiving such phone calls from alleged investors and alleged realtors, offering these lowball amounts of cash for the land.
	And she wasn't alone.
	Here was a news segment from another Maui resident who said something very similar.
	Realtors, people in the real estate industry, are calling your family and your friends who have lost everything to buy their plots of land.
	It is disgusting.
	We have real estate investors and speculators going around calling our victims, offering to give them cash and buy their property.
	It is disgusting.
	It's a land grab.
	And I know that our Lahaina community, we are resilient and we will do whatever it takes to protect Lahaina.
	And that's one of the big concerns as they search for the missing and the dead is that Lahaina doesn't lose its spirit, right?
	That people from the outside don't come and rebuild and turn into a tourist Mecca.
	We've already been displaced enough and, you know, we plan to have a seat at the table in rebuilding Lahaina and ensuring that the rich cultural history of Lahaina is protected and that the multi-generational families get to come back home.
	And the land in question here, just for your reference, is incredibly valuable.
	In the beginning part of the year 2020, the average home value in Lahaina was worth about $600,000.
	This year, in 2023, before this fire, that same average home price was worth about a million dollars.
	And so, there appears to be somewhat of a race for people who have cash on hand, like investors and realtors, to come in and acquire this land.
	Now on the one hand, you might look at this as somewhat of a macabre benefit.
	People who have just lost everything are getting an opportunity to sell their land and get hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time when they probably really need the cash.
	On the other hand, though, this is pretty much the textbook definition of a predatory transaction, preying on people who have literally lost everything.
	And in fact, these alleged calls have gotten so bad that the Hawaiian governor had to step in and not only urge the realtors and the investors to stop, but also the governor has instructed the state attorney general to implement a moratorium on land transactions in the Lahaina area.
	Specifically, while speaking about the reports of these residents getting these offers, here's what the Hawaiian governor said.
	My intention from start to finish is to make sure that no one is victimized from a land grab.
	People are right now traumatized.
	Please do not approach them with an offer to buy their land.
	Do not approach their families saying they'll be much better off if they make a deal, because we're not going to allow it.
	However, a moratorium on land transactions is a bit of a mixed bag.
	Because while on the one hand, it might prevent these predatory investors and predatory realtors from coming in with these lowball offers and then transforming this historical district into a tourist attraction, on the other hand, it might prevent the residents in this area from being able to cash out on some of the equity in their land in order to rebuild their lives.
	Because as sad as it is to say, in many cases, the people in that area who have lost everything, well, the value of that land might be the only thing that they have left.
	However, there's a third option, which is that the governor is considering coming in and having the state buy out that land.
	Here's specifically what the governor said during an interview with a local news outlet over in Maui about this potential eminent domain.
	I'm already thinking about ways for the state to acquire that land so that we can put it into workforce housing, to put it back into families, or to make it open spaces in perpetuity as a memorial to people who were lost.
	We want this to be something that we remember after the pain passes as a magic place.
	But we don't want this to become a cleared space where then, yes, people from overseas just come and decide they're going to take it.
	The state will take it and preserve it first.
	And this is, in fact, something that the governor could do, given the fact that over in Hawaii, quote, eminent domain gives the government the power to take your property, even if you don't want to sell it.
	But under the Fifth Amendment, eminent domain must be for a, quote-unquote, public use.
	Now, while it is true that in that video clip, Governor Green was talking about having the state acquire that land and then making it available to the families in the area who lost everything, he also mentioned turning it into a workforce housing area.
	Which, if you've ever lived in New York City, San Francisco, Detroit, Philadelphia, Boston, or quite literally any other place in the country, well, there's another name for a workforce housing area.
	It's called the Projects.
	And so, what all this amounts to is that amidst the tragedy of...
	Literally still having to look through rubble in order to rescue people and find your family members.
	The residents over Maui are now having to deal with either predatory investors or the government coming in and potentially acquiring the land from underneath their feet.
	Leading to videos like these.
	We're all hurt.
	We're all grieving.
	A lot of our hearts were here and it's now completely gone.
	But we're still here and we have to keep it that way.
	So It's time for us to get up and rebuild.
	We cannot sit back and feel sorry for ourselves.
	This is the time for us to stand together as a community.
	The strong community that we know we are needed it.
	You know, a lot of our people, like I said, we have lost everything.
	So the fact that they're already thinking that they probably can't afford to rebuild.
	You know, a lot of people's life savings are in the house.
	And I want to assure, I want to make sure that every single one of our community members know that We will make it happen.
	We will make it happen.
	Do not sell to anybody outside.
	We will get you back in your house.
	No matter what we have to do, we will get the funding to make sure that we can pre-build everybody's homes.
	But then, on a positive note, there are law firms which are stepping up in order to help the residents stave off these land grab attempts.
	As just one example, here's one of these entities called the Maui Legal Preservation Fund, which is working to help the local residents.
	One of the entities that's reached out so far is actually a nonprofit.
	It's known as People Help the People.
	They're going to be teaming up with me for a legal effort where we're going to get boots on the ground in Maui, actually trying to help these people out with three main issues, the first being the government.
	And Governor Green's emergency declaration, which under certain Hawaiian laws allow him to have unfettered authority to take land, condemn land.
	He can abate land.
	He can segregate people.
	He can even force the individual landowners to pay for the cost of destruction of their own property, even if it's privately owned land.
	You have insurance carriers that are refusing property settlement claims.
	You have insurance carriers denying homeowners claims, even though these people dutifully pay their policies every month.
	And now they're being denied money after losing everything.
	And the third angle is the fact that you have private investors making low-ball offers to acquire this land knowing that it's never going to come back to these families moving forward.
	Some of these families are still looking for their loved ones and meanwhile they're getting faced with people that are just preying on their homes and trying to take their land.
	So moving forward, what we're going to do, we're going to get this legal effort built out, give them access to the rights and knowledge and information that they need.
	Check out our website.
	It's MauiLegalPreservationFund.org.
	That's MauiLegalPreservationFund.org.
	And we're going to get them to help.
	If you're interested in learning more about that particular project, I'll throw a link to the Maui Legal Preservation Fund's website.
	It'll be down there in the description box below this video for you to check out, which I'll mention is that same description box below those like and subscribe buttons, both of which I hope you take a quick moment to smash so that this video and this content can reach ever more people via the YouTube algorithm.
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	And now, let's head on back to the studio.
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