Hours after losing her house to the Palisades fire in Los Angeles, Charlotta La Via was looking out of her hotel window and half-wishing she’d booked the hotel across the street when she spotted a “for lease” sign on a building nearby.

It was advertising a luxury apartment complex in downtown Santa Monica, more like a five-star hotel than conventional living, with prices to match. But she and her husband didn’t hesitate. They signed a lease on a three-bedroom apartment almost as soon as they’d finished touring it.

“Aren’t you being impulsive?” their 18-year-old daughter asked. At the time, three-bedroom apartments in the complex – which includes a pool, a gym, a doorman, and a rooftop deck with idyllic ocean views – were being listed at more than $20,000 a month.