An update on the cause of the Palisades Fire, Hunter Biden’s bizarre Romanian real estate deal, and a once-prominent pharmacy chain comes to an end. From the wild and wooly world of real estate, here are our Hits and Misses for the week of Oct. 6-10.
Miss: Now, What Was That About Climate Change? This week saw the arrest of Jonathan Rinderknecht, a 29-year-old Uber driver who was accused of being responsible for January’s Palisades Fire that destroyed 6,837 structures and resulted in 12 deaths. According to the charges against him, Rinderknecht started the Lachman Fire that began early in the morning on New Year’s Day 2025 – firefighters quickly suppressed that blaze, but it continued to smolder and burn underground within the root structure of dense vegetation before heavy winds caused the underground fire to surface on Jan. 7 and spread above ground. This scenario, with its mix of arson and incompetent forest management, refutes the notion that the Palisades Fire was the result of climate change – a claim repeated endlessly by politicians including California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom and Sen. Alex Padilla. Not surprisingly, those who blamed the wildfires on climate change did not acknowledge the error of their statements.
Miss: Builders, Go Where I Send Thee. President Trump remembered the housing market this week and declared its problems are being exacerbated by homebuilders who are not building enough new residential properties. In a social media post, he compared the nation’s homebuilders to OPEC when it intentionally withheld oil from the world’s market, adding that the builders are sitting on 2 million empty lots. No one seems to know where he got that number from, and equally mysterious is his decision to task “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to get Big Homebuilders going and, by so doing, help restore the American Dream!” One might imagine this would be the job for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, not the government-sponsored enterprises. But, hey, if Trump can bring a ceasefire to Gaza, who’s to say he can’t get 2 million homes built?
Hit: The Diplomatic Real Estate Executives. With all eyes on the Middle East as the war between Israel and the Hamas terrorists winds down, praise needs to go to Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in securing the peace deal. Both men were real estate developers before being tasked by Trump to take on diplomatic duties, and clearly their skills and experience in negotiations and satisfying multiple stakeholders came in handy in this thorny environment. If the peace in the Middle East holds, the world will owe an extraordinary debt to these two men.
Miss: Oh, Hunter! Joe Biden hasn’t been in the White House since January, but his son Hunter Biden is still in the news. This week, the New York Post had a thoroughly wacky (and previously unreported) story about how the former First Son and his uncle, James Biden, were involved in a cockamamie scheme to sell land around the US Embassy in Bucharest, Romain, to a group that included a Chinese company. The story is too convoluted to summarize here, so feel free to read the full tale at this link. After reading it, you’ll understand why Joe Biden was so liberal in issuing blanket pardons for his family members dating back to 2014 – you have to wonder what other zany antics this clan tried to pull that has yet to be reported.
Miss: End of an Era. This week, we shared the news on the closing of the last stores in the Rite Aid pharmacy chain. The company started in 1962 and had 5,000 stores during its peak years, but it had fewer than 100 locations prior to its official shuttering. As a personal aside, I always enjoyed being a Rite Aid customer and seeing this once-prominent company on a one-way journey into the history books is very sad. Thus, allow me to offer a very fond farewell to Rite Aid – it was always a pleasure doing business with them.
Hit: Job Well Done. Kudos to the MBA Opens Doors Foundation for generating $3.1 million against a $2.8 million goal in corporate and individual donations during its Annual Appeal fundraising campaign for fiscal year 2026. The foundation provides mortgage and rental payment assistance for financially vulnerable families with critically ill or injured children, enabling them to stay in their homes without worrying about housing costs while their child is in treatment. Since it was launched in 2011, the foundation has provided more than $28 million in aid to nearly 18,500 families. This is a wonderful endeavor that brings out the best in the mortgage industry, and special praise goes to its president, Deborah E. Dubois, and chairman, Debra W. Still, on their fundraising success.
Phil Hall is editor at Weekly Real Estate News. He can be reached at [email protected].
