Real Estate Round-Up:

Last week I was in Indian Wells for the California Association of Realtors winter state directors meeting. It was like drinking from a fire hose, getting up to speed on the vision and corresponding legislation coming down from the new administration.

There is a new sheriff in town, named Gov. Gavin Newsom, and things will be different for California if he has his way. He is surrounded by a super majority in both the state Senate and the state Assembly, so passing legislation will be simple. Name it, claim it and pass it along to the taxpayer.

The committees at CAR review pending legislation and current direction from the perspective of homeownership and private property rights. The state directors come from across the state and have various political affiliations, diverse race, age and sexual orientation and a wide range of social and fiscal opinions. It is a forum where directors are encouraged to speak freely, with no set outcome in mind beyond how it affects homeownership and property rights. We flush things out and reach a consensus. The federal congress could take a page out of these meetings.

In future weeks I will dig deeper into the following topics:

What is “affordable workforce housing?” The governor said that he wants California to build 500,000 more units of housing each of the next seven years. In light of the fact that last year California only built 130,000 units, it is a steep climb with undefined guidelines. It appears that many of these units will be for rent units and even some government-owned units. Which takes me to my next topic.

The governor has requested that all state-owned land be evaluated to see what can be developed or what can be exchanged with communities so housing can be built.

Even though Proposition 10 failed in November, the governor said that it is his intention to address “rent stabilization.” Sounds like rent control to me, and it doesn’t really matter that the voters rejected it, because it’s all in the name of more affordable housing, right?

Assembly Bill 1, written by Cecilia Aquiar-Curry, D-Winters, seeks to reduce the vote required from two-thirds to 55 percent for bonded indebtedness to fund housing. Believe it or not, 55 percent is a compromise from what the governor wants, which is a simple majority. I bet I’m getting your attention now.

CAR is taking a “Watch” position on all legislation that would require local governments to plan and implement a jobs-housing balance. It means that as jobs are created, housing must be built to accommodate those new workers. We are watching this action because we believe that every community or county should make the decisions about the quantity of their housing needs and location of that housing.

CAR is also adopting an “Oppose” position on the electrification of housing. Recently the “decarbonization” of all buildings has come to the forefront. All buildings would rely solely on electricity as its energy source. Gas appliances would be eliminated, and retrofitting would be required to go from natural gas or propane to electricity.

Laws passed last year require that buildings residential and commercial constructed after 2030 must be all-electric and that by 2045, all electricity used in the state must come from solar, wind or other emission free sources. Thus, gas-generated electricity and natural gas appliances are being phased out entirely as the state move forward. A cleaner California is absolutely a great direction, but imposing retrofitting on all existing structures will be expensive to the owners of those buildings.

That’s it for this week. Look for next week when I will take on one of these topics in-depth. I look forward to hearing from you. Have a great weekend.

Kim Murphy can be reached at [email protected] or (760) 415-9292 or at 130 N. Main Avenue, in Fallbrook. Her broker license is #01229921, and she is on the board of directors for the California Association of Realtors.