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 Links to web sites do not constitute an endorsement from The California Department of Real Estate. These links
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Top Stories
Powerful Realtors Group Loses Its Grip on the Industry
DEBRA KAMIN, New York Times (Subscription)
The staff members of the National Association of Realtors, the largest professional organization in the United States, were in a panic. Two days before the group’s national convention, they had set up 400 exhibition booths and were expecting nearly 12,000 people to arrive for three days of speakers, training sessions and networking.
But now they were scrambling to find extra security and private bodyguards for members of their team because the former president, who had resigned under the weight of sexual harassment allegations, wrote an open letter that they interpreted as a plan to crash the convention.
The theme of the yearly gathering for 2023 was “Own the Moment.”
National News
Five predictions for the national real estate market in 2024
ASHLEY FAHEY, The Sacramento Business Journal (Subscription)
We’ve reached the end of 2023, and it probably comes as no surprise that the U.S. office market, with all of its nuances, is top of mind for reporters across The Business Journals network of publications. We saw vacancy continue to rise, more companies list office space on the sublease market and a growing number of properties exhibit financial distress.
https://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2023/12/28/national-real-estate-predictions-2024.html
November pending home sales were unchanged, despite a sharp drop in mortgage rates
DIANA OLICK, CNBC
Pending home sales in November were unchanged compared with October and 5.2% lower than November of last year, according to the National Association of Realtors.
The reading, which is based on signed contracts during the month, is a forward-looking indicator of closed sales as well as the most current look at what potential homebuyers are thinking.
Less than 16 Percent of U.S. Homes For Sale Were Affordable for Typical Buyers in 2023
DAVID BARLEY, World Property Journal
According to Redfin, just 15.5% of U.S. homes for sale in 2023 were affordable for the typical U.S. household–the lowest share on record. That’s down from 20.7% in 2022 and more than 40% before the pandemic homebuying boom.
The number of affordable homes for sale also dropped to the lowest level on record. There were 352,500 affordable listings in 2023, down 40.9% from 596,135 in 2022 and down from over a million per year during the prior decade. While the decline is partly due to a drop in listings in general–listings overall fell 21.2% year over year–it’s also due to the fact that elevated mortgage rates and stubbornly high prices made the listings hitting the market more expensive.
California News
California homebuying crashed to record low sales in 2023. What’s next?
JONATHAN LANSNER, The San Jose Mercury News (Subscription)
In housing’s previous debacle, the end of easy-money lending was primarily to blame. California homebuying shrank by 49% in 2005-07 to fall below the previous bottom – 298,000 sales in 1991 when a broad economic malaise led to a slow half-decade for homebuying.
Yes, California home prices in 2023 didn’t follow the purchasing pace’s tumble into the abyss. You can thank few sellers and a half-decent job market for that pricing stability.
New law has Californians with criminal records ‘quite hopeful’ they’ll finally find housing
LIAM DILLON, BEN POSTON, The Los Angeles Times (Subscription)
In 2021, four years after finishing her last jail term and living in transitional housing in Riverside County, Erica Smith was ready for a permanent home.
She’d saved enough to cover a security deposit and the first and last month’s rent for an apartment for her and her daughter. But after three months of searching, Smith ran out of money, having burned through $10,000 on stays in motel rooms. She’d never found a place to live.
Smith had a series of drug-related and theft convictions on her record. Numerous cities within Riverside had adopted laws called crime-free housing that aimed to prohibit landlords from renting to tenants with criminal histories.
https://www.latimes.com/homeless-housing/story/2023-12-27/crime-free-housing-law-ban-state-law
L.A. eviction cases rose significantly this year. But it’s not all bad news for renters
PALOMA ESQUIVEL, The Los Angeles Times (Subscription)
The eviction courtrooms on the sixth floor of the Stanley Mosk Courthouse downtown were bustling this month, as they have been all year. In one, a woman and her children said they were fighting to hold on to their $750-per-month rent-stabilized apartment near SoFi Stadium, worried that their housing costs could triple if they had to leave. In another, an elderly woman facing eviction was accompanied by her son-in-law, who was also, separately, being evicted from his home.
Dozens of Near-Ready Affordable Housing Projects Likely To Be ‘Mothballed’
BEN CHRISTOPHER, San Jose Inside
The Newsom administration is preparing to dole out more than $500 million to build affordable housing, playing Santa to projects that promise to shelter low-wage school employees, veterans, farmworkers, people living on the street and other poor and middle-income Californians.
Like sleepless children on Christmas Eve, nonprofit developers across California are impatiently waiting to find out who will receive a cut. But everyone already knows that most will be left with empty stockings.
The total amount requested by these near-ready projects: More than $3.5 billion. The state only has $576 million to award.
Industry News
Real estate agents are bracing for the impact of the commission lawsuits
BROOKLEE HAN, HousingWire (Subscription)
From preparing for more negotiations with clients to better articulating their value proposition, agents are homing in on the skills they will need to succeed in a changing real estate landscape.
Title insurer First American and many subsidiaries remain offline
MATT CARTER, Inman (Subscription)
Title insurance giant First American Financial and some of its subsidiaries remained offline Tuesday after a cybersecurity incident prompted the company to isolate its systems from the internet on Dec. 20.
The outage has derailed closings and generated a wave of complaints about the lack of communication from the company, which, through a temporary website, has released scant details about the cybersecurity incident or the prospects for getting the company up and running again.
Adaptive Reuse
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Property News
There Are Interesting Homes. And Then There Are Homes With Life-Size Dinosaurs.
ROBYN A. FRIEDMAN, Wall Street Journal
We asked three real-estate professionals about some of the most unusual properties they’ve ever listed.
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