“just a quick scan of zillow reveals a few egregious instances of price gouging by landlords and agents. this is illegal,” someone else noted, highlighting one listing that was originally priced at $7,500 per month in late October and as of Jan. 11, went up to $11,000.

Fires in Los Angeles have destroyed thousands of homes, leaving families scrambling for long-term shelter in the face of uncertainty. Real estate listing websites such as Zillow have shown many properties taken off the market during the fires, only to be put back on the market for thousands more than they were originally listed for.

Within the week since Los Angeles’s worst-ever disaster began, rent gouging has become a crisis on top of the crisis. It’s against the law to increase a rental price by more than 10 percent once a state of emergency has been declared;

Angelenos lambast agents and landlords, but some change rates to fix tech glitches or adjust terms, others to profiteer.

Sites that host rental listings in the Los Angeles County area are scrambling to address rent gouging amid the destructive, deadly wildfires ravaging the region.

The ongoing disaster will affect residents’ health, local industries, public budgets and the cost of housing for years to come.

On a half-mile stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway that hugs the Malibu coastline, some 70 luxury homes once stood shoulder to shoulder on the sand, with uninterrupted views of the ocean. A wall of flames,

Fueled by powerful winds and dry conditions, a series of ferocious wildfires erupted last week and roared across the Los Angeles area.

Tenant advocacy groups, landlord associations and elected officials are condemning rent gouging after tens of thousands of people were displaced in deadly fires this month.

Zoe Weber, who submitted a few examples of possible price gouging to the L.A. Tenants Union's spreadsheet, also sent text messages to agents and landlords, warning them that they could be violating state law by increasing rents by more than 10%. She said she was hoping to get them to lower the rents.

While it may be impossible ever to know for sure, several variables could be at play for those homes that survive, experts say: a smart, fire-resilient design; an owners’ preparation, like clearing away flammable vegetation;