No one can predict the future, but you can prepare. Find out what to prepare for and pick up the tools you’ll need at Virtual Inman Connect on Nov. 1-2, 2023. And don’t miss Inman Connect New York on Jan. 23-25, 2024, where AI, capital, and more will be center stage. Bet big on the roaring future, and join us at Connect.
When Tyler Coons and his wife went to bed on Aug. 8, they could see from their home the glow of fires burning near the historic town of Lahaina, Maui, in the distance.
But Coons, a broker who runs Welcome Hawaii Properties, told Inman the surrounding flora was mostly small shrubs that burn out quickly. And besides, he had been through wildfires before.
Tyler Coons
“We weren’t really worried,” he said.
But just hours later around 4:30 a.m., the police came knocking, ordering everyone to evacuate.
“And they said, ‘Lahaina is gone,'” Coons recalled. “We couldn’t understand ‘Lahaina is gone.’ That didn’t even register.”
Coons said he and his wife soon stepped outside again and watched as the fire raced across the landscape. His description of the scene sounded like a chronicle of a medieval battle, with flames racing across hillsides, opening new fronts and flanking Lahaina’s once-picturesque waterfront.
After dawn finally arrived, the couple decided to walk from their home into the heart of the town to assess the damage to their office and a condo that belongs to Coons’ wife.
“As we walked the five miles we saw buildings that looked like they got hit by missiles,” Coons said.
These photos were captured by Tyler Coons last week in Lahaina showing numerous destroyed buildings. Credit: Tyler Coons
Coons said his company’s real estate office survived the blaze. But the condo wasn’t so lucky: It burned to the ground.
“At that point, she’s totally devastated,” Coons said of his wife. “She lost all the family photos, all the CDs, DVDs — all of her jewelry, her clothes — her entire collection of things is gone. It was devastating. It was just, shock.”
Later, the couple retrieved an electric golf cart and drove through what remained of the town. Coons described it as “total devastation like a bomb went off.”
“The only thing standing would be a stackable washer and dryer, or a water heater, maybe a cement wall,” he said of the scene. “In your vision, that’s all you could see.”
Video Coons shared with Inman shows him driving slowly down a street of homes that have been completely destroyed.
“Here’s one of the properties we manage right here,” Coons can be heard saying in the video, “completely destroyed and gone.”
The blaze that ripped through Coons’ section of Maui has been uniquely devastating, destroying thousands of buildings and killing scores of people. And nearly a week after the initial onslaught, the tragedy drags on; investigators are still finding bodies, authorities continue to search for the fires’ origins, and Coons said flames are still smoldering.
The situation has thrust people like Coons — which is to say, real estate professionals — into an unusual position. Living on the front lines of the disaster, they are in some cases themselves victims. But thanks to large social networks and an intimate understanding of the region’s housing stock, some members of the real estate community are also pivoting from trusted housing advisers and salespeople to something else: Relief workers and community organizers.
The deadliest fires in a century
As of Tuesday morning, authorities were still trying to pinpoint what initially caused the fires, though it was already clear what made them so bad. Among other factors, low humidity and gale-force winds with gusts up to 67 miles per hour created tinderbox conditions by Aug. 7. Then when fires did break out, crews discovered that the water system was failing and fire hydrants lacked adequate pressure to contain the flames, The New York Times reported.
Within days, some were pointing fingers at the local electric utility, Hawaiian Electric, which according to The Washington Post did not shut off power lines as winds picked up. The company is now facing a lawsuit accusing it of being at fault for the blazes, though investigators have not publicly or definitively said if power lines are to blame.
An aerial image taken on Aug. 10 shows destroyed buildings in Lahaina | Credit: Patrick T. Fallon, AFP and Getty Images
What’s clear, though, is the scale of the devastation. As of Tuesday morning, the death toll had reached 99 — though at a press conference, Gov. Josh Green said that number was likely to rise as searchers comb the burned area. Even at 99, though, the death toll has risen above any other for a U.S. wildfire in the last century.
The number of lost structures also continues to rise. On Monday, local media reported that flames had damaged or destroyed 2,200 buildings.
However, CoreLogic estimates the total will ultimately be much higher; late last week, the real estate data and analytics firm estimated that the fires destroyed 3,088 homes, more than 2,800 of which are located in Lahaina. CoreLogic also estimated that the total value of the destroyed homes will reach nearly $1.3 billion.
To put that level of devastation into context, none of the 20 largest wildfires in the history of blaze-prone California have destroyed so many homes. The closest was the Cedar Fire in San Diego County, which burned more than 2,800 structures in 2003. (The Camp Fire in 2018 burned more buildings, with estimates coming in at more than 18,000 — making it California’s most destructive wildland conflagration. But in terms of acreage it was not one of the Golden State’s largest fires.)
As the flames have died down, other complications are flaring up as well. In a press conference Monday, Green said that he is exploring a moratorium on the sale of real estate that was damaged or destroyed in the fires.
“You would be pretty poorly informed if you try to steal land from our people and then build here,” Green said.
The comments appear to be a response to claims, in some cases shared on social media, that investors and agents have approached people who lost homes with offers to buy their land.
Roy Sakamoto
However, at least some agents have put their work on hold. Roy Sakamoto, a managing director for Coldwell Banker Kapalua, told Inman in an email that he is not working on deals right now and hopes “we do not see ‘investors’ flock in and take advantage of our local citizens.”
“I will do everything I can to stop this, but I know I’ll fight a losing battle,” Sakamoto added.
Sakamoto was born and raised in Lahaina and has worked in the area’s real estate industry for decades. He told Inman that “it’s a very sad situation here.”
“All visitors have been told to leave,” he said, “and hopefully they have so we can get to the business of retrieving bodies and starting the massive cleanup.”
A volunteer assesses damage to a charred apartment complex in Lahaina, Thursday. | Credit: Yuki Iwamura, AFP and Getty Images
Real estate institutions provide aid
The situation has thrust real estate institutions into the role of caregivers.
Collette Ching
Collette Ching is a broker who owns several Keller Williams offices in Hawaii. She told Inman that one of her agents, along with the agent’s elderly mother, were missing. Additionally, 11 families of Keller Williams’ agents “lost everything,” Ching said, adding that in another case a client just closed on a “dream home” only to see that home burn to the ground last week.
“Our agents are in complete shock,” she added.
Ching was not in Hawaii when the fires broke out. She said that as of Monday she and her agents have still been unable to reach many of their clients.
The comment matches up with Inman’s experience reaching out to people in the region; this week Inman attempted to contact more than two dozen agents in and around Lahaina, but several responded saying that they were unable to make calls and could barely access email because communication infrastructure was severely damaged.
Ching said that her office near the fire zone survived, but the scale of the destruction is unprecedented.
“We’ve never seen anything like it,” she added.
Against that backdrop, Keller Williams — which has a total of more than 220 agents across Maui — activated its charitable giving program KW Cares last week. The program provides grants to agents and their families to help get them through the initial stages of the disaster and works to coordinate communications with impacted company personnel.
Alexia Rodriguez
“Amid the Hawaii wildfires, KW Cares is on a mission to support our agents who have been impacted,” Alexia Rodriguez, CEO of KW Cares, said in a statement. “We’re here to make a difference from emergency assistance to long-term recovery.”
In addition to Keller Williams, eXp Realty told Inman Tuesday that it has a “number” of agents whose homes suffered damage, including four who “unfortunately lost their homes entirely.”
The company is using its charitable organization eXtend a Hand to provide funds for impacted agents. Other eXp agents in Hawaii are working to distribute supplies to local communities.
Anywhere — the parent of major brands such as Coldwell Banker and Century 21 — has also been promoting its Anywhere Disaster Relief Fund. The company told Inman in an email that the fund “supports our employees, franchisees, and agents in areas where there’s a federally declared major disaster.”
Compass has also activated its Compass Cares program, which is designed to provide relief to impacted Compass agents and their families. In an Instagram post, Compass CEO Robert Reffkin said that “our hearts are with our Maui and the Big Island communities right now facing the devastating wildfires.”
As part of its efforts, Compass has launched a GoFundMe campaign to benefit impacted members of the brokerage, which as of Tuesday had raised more than $85,000.
Burned cars and destroyed buildings at the Lahaina waterfront on Aug. 11 | Credit: Paula Ramon, AFP and Getty Images
In addition, the National Association of Realtors took action this week, announcing Monday a $1.5 million relief grant for fire victims. According to a statement, the funds “will be made available to the public to assist with disaster victims’ housing payments as relief and recovery efforts continue.”
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration have also announced relief programs that include mortgage forbearance and a moratorium on foreclosures.
A scramble to help
Not all the real estate-based relief to the fires is coming at the institutional level, though. Case in point: Coons.
Not long after Coons surveyed the destruction in the core of Lahaina, he got to work. In addition to working as a broker, Coons also runs a property management company that oversees a number of high-end second homes. When the fire ripped through the area, Coons began getting calls from some of the property owners and they soon devised a plan.
“As they’re getting updates, they’re like, ‘I have two fridges and freezers of food, go disseminate it,'” Coons recalled.
By the time Coons spoke with Inman on Monday, he said he had gathered food and provisions from six different homes. He brought the food to an off-the-grid property with a solar array, then began handing it out to people in need.
At the same time, Coons also coordinated with his property owner clients to use their second homes as shelters for displaced people.
“We had a displaced family of 8 that was living in the valley,” he said. “We put them in one of our homes that we manage. They hadn’t slept in the days. They’re just so grateful.”
Eventually, Coons also started a GoFundMe campaign. As of Tuesday, the campaign had raised more than $61,000. Coons himself donated $25,000 to the effort. He told Inman his hope is to distribute the money in $500 grants, which would enable the effort to help about 120 families.
“We’re creating a list, starting with people who have lost family members and then people who have lost homes,” he explained.
Destroyed buildings in Lahaina last week | Credit: Tyler Coons
Coons’ efforts capture a side of real estate that often flies under the radar — at least until tragedy strikes. Though day-to-day life selling homes involves deal-making and sales, the profession also involves building large databases and durable relationships. And sometimes, those relationships translate into nimble and effective relief efforts. It has happened before in other disasters, such as after hurricanes in Florida and wildfires in California.
In the case of the fires in Maui, Coons credited his database of more than 60,000 people for helping him find supplies and money that he can use to help the community. But he also said that the nature of working in real estate has left him especially well-positioned to pitch in during devastating times.
“Being in the real estate community, we’re bound by a code of ethics and we’re a big part of the community. We’re dealing with people’s very intimate needs,” he said.
“For me, it’s not transactional. For me, it’s family.”
Update: This post was updated after publication with information provided to Inman by eXp Realty.