October 19, 2026
A teardown lot is the most common way a custom home project in Los Angeles begins. You are not buying empty land — you are buying a house that is going to come down. The City records both the demolition and whatever is permitted afterwards, and both carry the parcel number, so what happens next is measurable.
We took every single-family house demolition permit the City issued since January 2020 — 4,943 permits across 4,544 parcels — and joined each parcel to anything new permitted on it. About half were replaced by another single-family house. Just over a quarter became a duplex or an apartment building. Around a fifth had nothing new permitted at all within two years.
Which of those happens is decided overwhelmingly by where the lot is. This report publishes the figures and the dataset. It does not argue for a cause; where a number invites one, the competing readings are listed and left open.
The Dataset
- Source: City of Los Angeles open data, dataset
pi9x-tg5x— Building and Safety permits issued from 2020 to present. Public, updated daily, extracted 2026-10-18. - Unit: the parcel, not the permit. 4,943 demolition permits cover 4,544 parcels, because some parcels carry more than one. Each parcel is counted once, from its earliest demolition permit.
- Replacement means any new-build permit on the same parcel, counted whether it came before or after the demolition permit. Demolition is frequently not the first step — 7.4% of parcels had the house permit first.
- These are permits, not buildings. A demolition permit is not proof the house came down, and a new-build permit is not proof anything was built.
- Cohorts stop at 2024 for a reason worth reading — see Finding 6.
Permits are issued by the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety. What may legally replace a house on a given lot is a zoning question, which sits with City Planning and is not recorded in this dataset.
Finding 1: About Half Become Another Single-Family House
Of parcels where a house was demolished in 2022, 50.5% had a new single-family house permit within two years. The 2020 cohort managed 43.6%.
Share with a new single-family house permit within 24 months of the demolition permit. Later cohorts are omitted because the full two years has not yet elapsed for every parcel in them.
Finding 2: The Curve Is Flat After the First Year
The 2021 cohort reaches 45.1% at twelve months and 50.0% at forty-eight — 4.9 points gained across three further years. The 2020 cohort behaves the same way.
The 2022 line stops at 36 months because the 48-month mark has not passed for every parcel in that cohort.
Whatever is going to be permitted on a teardown lot is mostly permitted inside the first year.
Finding 3: Multi-Family Replacement Has Fallen Four Cohorts Running
Sorting each cohort by what was permitted within two years, the share becoming a duplex or apartment building fell from 32.3% of 2020 demolitions to 26.2% of 2023.
| Demolition year | Parcels | New house | Duplex / apartment | ADU only | Other | Nothing permitted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 770 | 43.6% | 32.3% | 0.5% | 0.5% | 23.0% |
| 2021 | 906 | 48.6% | 30.0% | 0.9% | 1.0% | 19.5% |
| 2022 | 957 | 50.5% | 27.0% | 1.8% | 0.8% | 20.0% |
| 2023 | 762 | 47.9% | 26.2% | 1.2% | 0.7% | 24.0% |
The decline runs through the period in which California's lot-split and duplex legislation took effect. The permit record contains no field identifying which law a project was filed under, so this report states the measurement and nothing more.
Finding 4: Where the Lot Is Decides What Replaces the House
Pooling the cohorts where two years have fully elapsed, across the 19 community plan areas with at least 40 parcels, the share becoming multi-family runs from 70.6% in Southeast Los Angeles down to 0.0% in Encino - Tarzana. Two areas recorded none at all.
Bars show the share of demolished parcels that became a duplex or apartment building within 24 months; the note gives the share that became a single-family house.
Finding 5: Demolition Sits Inside the Project, Not Before It
Among parcels replaced by a house, the gap from demolition permit to new house permit has a median of 2.5 months (quartiles 0.7 and 5.6, 90th percentile 11.2). 26.4% fall within a single month either side, and 7.4% had the house permit before the demolition permit at all.
On this record, demolition is generally a step inside a project that is already permitted and funded, rather than the opening move on a newly bought lot.
Finding 6: The City Changed How It Labels Demolitions, and the Obvious Reading Is Wrong
This one matters for anyone reusing the dataset. During 2025 the City began recording house demolitions under a generic code rather than the single-family one. Counting only the obvious field suggests teardowns collapsed. The combined total rose.
| Year | Labelled "Dwelling – Single Family" | Labelled "Demolition" | Combined |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 1,046 | 1 | 1,047 |
| 2023 | 820 | 1 | 821 |
| 2024 | 678 | 0 | 678 |
| 2025 | 508 | 375 | 883 |
| 2026 | 73 | 970 | 1,043 |
The generic code also mixes houses with garages and patio covers, so the two columns cannot simply be added to produce a house count. That is why the cohorts in this report stop at 2024. New-build permits are unaffected by the change.
Possible Readings
The record carries parcels and dates, not intentions. These are the explanations the figures are consistent with; the data cannot choose between them.
- The flat curve fits demolition being a funded step in an underway project — which the short median gap and the share permitted within a month either side also fit.
- It fits the opposite story equally well. Parcels that do not move quickly may be hitting problems that do not resolve: financing, a site constraint, a sale that stalls.
- The geographic split could be zoning capacity, land economics, who is buying, or all three. None of those fields exist in the permit record.
- The falling multi-family share has several readings — a change in what pencils, in construction and financing costs, or in which parcels come to market. The dates cannot separate them.
- The parcels with nothing permitted are not necessarily idle. They may be held, resold, or assembled into a larger site. Some are not traceable at all (see Method).
Opportunity Spotlight
- A teardown lot is not automatically a single-family site. In Southeast Los Angeles the majority outcome was multi-family; in Encino - Tarzana it did not happen once.
- The first twelve months do nearly all the work. A parcel still unpermitted a year after demolition is, on this record, unlikely to move soon — worth knowing when valuing one.
- A 2020-era assumption is now out of date. Multi-family conversion has fallen 6.1 points across four cohorts.
- Around a fifth of parcels show no new-build permit within two years. Whatever that reflects, it is not the outcome most feasibility models assume.
Method
- Join. Demolition permits with
use_descDwelling – Single Family, matched by assessor parcel number to anyBldg-Newpermit. Parcel numbers are present on 100% of demolitions and 99.99% of new builds. - Window. A replacement counts from 12 months before the demolition permit to the horizon after it. The lookback is a judgement call: it captures 91.8% of pre-demolition permits, which cluster at a median of one month. A 24-month lookback would capture 99.1% and raise the shares slightly.
- Fixed-horizon cohort shares. A horizon is published only once every parcel in that cohort has had the full period to run against the extract date; otherwise it is left out entirely.
- Parcels, not permits. 4,943 permits reduce to 4,544 parcels. Counting permits would inflate every denominator by about 8%.
- ⚠️ Lot merges and splits change the parcel number, so a lot rebuilt under a new identifier looks as though it was never rebuilt. The "nothing permitted" share is an upper bound, not a count of idle land.
- Multi-family figures count parcels, not dwelling units. A parcel becoming a duplex and one becoming a 20-unit building count the same here.
- Area figures are published only where at least 40 parcels support them, which yields 19 of the City's community plan areas.
Download the Data
The processed dataset is published for reuse. Attribution to Blackbriar is welcome but not required; the underlying records are the City of Los Angeles'.
- replacement-by-demolition-year.csv — replacement share at each horizon, by demolition year
- outcome-by-community-plan-area.csv — house, multi-family and nothing-permitted shares for 19 areas
- teardown-replacement.json — the complete dataset, including the outcome mix, timing, the label-change evidence, source metadata and caveats
How Blackbriar Uses This
We build custom homes in Los Angeles, and most of our sites start with a house that has to come down. What the record changes is mostly at the feasibility stage: the lot's area is treated as a predictor of what is realistic on it, the demolition is scheduled inside the build programme rather than ahead of it, and the first twelve months after demolition are understood to be when a project either moves or stops. Our process and services pages set out how we work, and you can talk to us directly.
FAQ
What usually replaces a demolished house in Los Angeles?
Across parcels where a single-family house was demolished between 2020 and 2023, about half received a new single-family house permit within two years — 50.5% for the 2022 cohort. Between 26.2% and 32.3% became a duplex or apartment building, and around a fifth had no new-build permit at all within two years.
Does a teardown lot always become another single-family house?
No, and in some areas it rarely does. In Southeast Los Angeles, 70.6% of demolished parcels became multi-family and 13.8% became a house. In Encino - Tarzana no parcel became multi-family at all. The community plan area is the strongest single predictor in this data.
How long after demolition does the new house get permitted?
A median of 2.5 months, with a quarter inside 0.7 months. 26.4% are permitted within a single month either side of the demolition, and 7.4% have the house permit before the demolition permit, so demolition is usually part of an underway project rather than its start.
What share of demolished lots are never rebuilt?
Between 19.5% and 24.0% had no new-build permit on the same parcel within two years, depending on the cohort. That is an upper bound: lot merges and splits change the parcel number, so some of those lots were rebuilt under a new identifier and cannot be traced in this dataset.
Did single-family teardowns collapse in 2026?
No. The City changed how it codes demolition permits during 2025, moving house demolitions to a generic label. Counting only the single-family label suggests a large fall, but the combined total rose from 678 in 2024 to 1,043 so far in 2026. The generic label also includes garages and patio covers, so the two cannot simply be added to produce a house count.
Where does this data come from?
The City of Los Angeles open data portal, dataset pi9x-tg5x, covering building permits issued from 2020 to present. It was extracted on 2026-10-18 and covers 4,943 single-family demolition permits across 4,544 parcels. The processed dataset is published for download with this report.
Recommended
- 2026 Los Angeles Lot Due Diligence Report — what to establish about a site before you buy it
- 2026 Los Angeles Permit Approval Timeline Report — how long the permit itself takes
- 2026 Los Angeles Residential Building Permit Report — how many houses are being permitted, and where