DRE News Clips
COVERAGE INFORMATION:
California Department of Real Estate (DRE) NEWS CLIPS service coverage:
Monday through Friday (except state holidays) each week includes electronic format articles retrieved from newspapers or news services that report real estate related news in California and some national services. Coverage is for California newspapers that are available electronically via the Internet - and any significant related breaking news.
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© Copyright 2023, California Department of Real Estate |
ADAPTIVE REUSE
Solving California’s Housing Crisis by Providing Incentives for Adaptive Reuse of Office Buildings
JOSEPH HANEY III - JDSupra - 03/24/2023
In the recent tradition of California legislation that proffers development incentives to residential developers that include affordable housing and utilize a skilled and trained workforce in their project, Assemblyman Matt Haney has introduced Assembly Bill 1532. On its face, AB 1532 is an adaptive reuse bill aimed at solving California’s housing crisis, but unlike similar legislation, it includes a mechanism to offset the costs of these commitments.
CALIFORNIA NEWS
Outlook for Bay Area home prices is changing. Here's the latest data
KELLIE HWANG, ADRIANA REZAL - The San Francisco Chronicle (Subscription) - 03/29/2023
While home prices are still expected to decline in the Bay Area over the next year, the outlook is improving a bit, according to new data — even amid ongoing economic pressures in the Bay Area.
Projections by Zillow show that home values in the San Francisco metro areas will likely decrease 2.7% in the next year, compared with the 3.6% decline the real estate listings website was forecasting in December.
Newport Beach battles a new breed of luxury party houses: fractional ownership
HANNAH FRY - The Los Angeles Times (Subscription) - 03/29/2023
Max Gardner and his wife, Artyn, decided to sell their home in Irvine and move to Balboa Island eight years ago because they wanted something more than a comfortable place to live. They were hunting for a lifestyle.
On this tony man-made island in Newport Beach, stately homes with street-facing patios are clustered together on avenues named after gemstones. Residents zip around in golf carts, taking in the harbor boats, art fairs and chic boutiques. Visitors ride in on a ferry to buy frozen bananas from a sweet shop that inspired the family banana stand on the TV sitcom “Arrested Development.”
San Diego has 3rd biggest decline in home prices in key 20-city housing report
PHILLIP MOLNAR - The San Diego Union Tribune (Subscription) - 03/28/2023
A closely watched housing report released Tuesday showed San Diego had erased annual price gains.
San Diego metropolitan area saw its annual price drop 1.4 percent in January, said the S&P Case-Shiller Indices. That is a substantial difference from the 30 percent rise in March, and the first time America’s Finest City had posted a negative number since June 2012.
NATIONAL NEWS
US 30-year fixed mortgage rate eases to six-week low of 6.45%
AUGUSTA SARAIVA - The Sacramento Bee (Subscription) - 03/29/2023
U.S. mortgage rates edged down to a six-week low of 6.45%, helping drive a fourth-straight advance in applications to buy a home. The contract rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage eased 3 basis points in the week ended March 24, Mortgage Bankers Association data showed Wednesday. The group’s index of mortgage applications to purchase a home rose 2% to 172.7.
Baby boomers overtake millennials as prime homebuying generation as first-time buyers get sidelined
ASHLEY FAHEY - The Sacramento Business Journal (Subscription) - 03/29/2023
Millennials are no longer the top generation buying homes, as a rapid increase in mortgage rates and other factors have sidelined a lot of first-time buyers since last spring and summer.
The National Association of Realtors this week released its latest demographic report, finding baby boomers, ages 58 to 76, last year made up 39% of homebuyers, an increase from 29% in 2021. Millennials, who are now 24 to 42 years old, had been the dominant homebuying generation prior to 2022 but last year made up 28% of homebuyers, quite a decline from the 43% observed in 2021.
Will spring be a bust? 4 decades of housing data tell a complex story
JIM DALRYMPLE II - Inman (Subscription) - 03/29/2023
Inflation was spiking. Prices were getting away from consumers, and politicians were feeling the heat. The Federal Reserve had to do something.
And it did, pushing rates up at an unprecedented pace. Almost on a dime, the cost of borrowing money went through the roof. A new reality set in.
That may sound like 2022, but it also — and perhaps more accurately — describes 1979, when inflation rose to more than 11 percent, and then 1980, when it topped out at more than 13.5 percent. And at the time the man leading the Fed wasn’t current Chair Jerome Powell, but rather Paul Volcker, who aggressively and controversially pushed interest rates higher and higher in an incredibly short time.
Which US cities have seen the biggest gains in home price growth?
CANDYD MENDOZA - Mortgage Professional America - 03/29/2023
National home price growth across the country decelerated for the ninth straight month in January amid a volatile mortgage-rate environment and the recent string of bank closures.
The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller home price index posted a 3.8% annual increase in January, down from 5.6% in December. The 10-City Composite annual gain slowed from 4.4% to 2.5%, while the 20-City Composite went down from 4.6% to a 2.5% year-over-year gain.
On a month-over-month basis, the national index reported a -0.5% drop, while the 10-City and 20-City Composites experienced decreases of -0.5% and -0.6%, respectively.
US housing cools further, with prices down 3% from the peak
PATRICK CLARK - The Sacramento Bee (Subscription) - 03/28/2023
The U.S. housing slump stretched into a seventh month in January. Home prices nationally fell 0.2% from December, according to seasonally adjusted data from S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller. The index is now down 3% from its record high, reached in June. Prices have continued to soften as seller discounts become more common in a market where buyer demand has been sagging for months. Toward the end of 2022 and into January, mortgage rates eased slightly from the peak in November, giving some house hunters incentive to negotiate a deal.
As the housing market remains tight, experts say real estate fraud has spiked in the US
JENNIFER SOR - Business Insider - 03/26/2023
When fraud victims contact Mark Berman, an attorney at Ganfer Shore that frequently deals with cases of real estate fraud, they're often distraught. Many of them were close to closing on a property when they received a legitimate-looking email or text asking them to wire a chunk of money to wrap up the deal.
It becomes clear later that the request was sent by a fraudster, part of a wave of similar scams looking to take advantage of frustrated homebuyers and sellers clamoring to transact in a tough market.
Rent growth drops back to pre-pandemic levels, but some markets are falling much harder
DIANA OLICK - CNBC - 03/28/2023
Apartment rents have increased slightly for the past few months, as the seasonally stronger spring activity kicks in. But in March they were only up 2.6% from March of 2022.
That’s the smallest annual gain since April 2021, according to Apartment List. And, after last year’s record-setting pace, rent growth is now slightly below the pre-pandemic average of 2.8%. Some markets, such as San Francisco, are falling at a bigger rate.
Vacancies are also starting to rise back to normal levels, as more supply comes on the market. They stand at 6.6%, up from 6.4% in February.
INDUSTRY NEWS
Little cooling for Southern California real estate hiring
JONATHAN LANSNER - The Orange County Register (Subscription) - 03/29/2023
Southern California real estate had surprisingly robust hiring in February with jobs added at roughly twice the pre-pandemic pace.
Despite a crash in homebuying, bosses in real estate-related industries in the four counties employed 770,000 workers in February, up 12,900 for the month or a 1.7% increase. In pre-pandemic 2015-19, an average February saw 6,480 real estate jobs added.
REAL ESTATE TECHNOLOGY
No stories today
TELEWORK NEWS
Distress in Office Market Spreads to High-End Buildings
KONRAD PUTZIER - Wall Street Journal (Subscription) - 03/28/2023
Defaults and vacancies are on the rise at high-end office buildings, in the latest sign that remote work and rising interest rates are spreading pain to more corners of the commercial real-estate market.
For much of the pandemic, buildings in central locations that feature modern amenities fared better than their less-pricey peers. Some even were able to increase rents while older, cheaper buildings saw surging vacancy rates and plummeting values. Now, these so-called class-A properties, whose rents generally fall into a city’s top quartile, are increasingly coming under pressure.
The amount of U.S. class-A office space in central business districts that is leased fell in the fourth quarter of last year for the first time since 2021, according to Moody’s Analytics. The owners of a number of high-end properties recently defaulted on their mortgages, highlighting the financial strain from rising interest rates and vacancies.
PROPERTY NEWS
Disney’s planned community in California takes shape with nod to ‘The Incredibles’
LUKE MONEY - The Los Angeles Times (Subscription) - 03/28/2023
The House of Mouse? Think a whole lot bigger.
Officials on Friday released fresh details about the first Storyliving by Disney project, an ambitious effort in Riverside County to infuse a master-planned community with the Burbank entertainment giant’s trademark whimsy and wonder.
Among the newly unveiled features of the in-the-works Cotino community is the “Parr House” — a gathering space inspired in name, design and decor by the midcentury-style home of the superhero family in the Disney and Pixar film “Incredibles 2.”
