Southern California real estate bosses have dramatically cooled their hiring pace as high interest rates trim construction plans and home sales. My trusty spreadsheet found property-linked employment in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties was 755,900 in March 2024. That’s up only 2,200 jobs from February and 36% slower than the seasonal norm. In pre-pandemic 2015-19, an average 3,460 jobs were added in March. Another slowdown sign: In the last 12 months, real estate work grew locally by 7,400 positions, but the industyr’s hiring pace has averaged 13,800 a year since 201 ..read more

Jeff Ostrowski | Bankrate.com (TNS) As homebuyers grapple with record prices this spring, mortgage rates have also crept up. On a 30-year fixed loan, the average rate was 7.39% as of May 1, according to Bankrate’s survey of large lenders, marking three straight months of 7% rates. Blame inflation. It’s still stubbornly elevated, rising to 3.5% in March, and that’s led to dialed-back expectations about how quickly the Federal Reserve cuts rates this year, if at all. The central bank left rates unchanged at its latest meeting concluding May 1. Meanwhile, the unemployment ..read more

If California’s population is well off its peak, and developers keep on building housing, why does the cost of living in the Golden State remain lofty? My trusty spreadsheet looked at fresh demographic figures from the state Department of Finance to find any hints of solving this housing riddle. Start with the basics: California had 38.2 million residents living in households last year – that’s down 375,800 since 2020, or a 0.9% loss. In the same timeframe, California’s housing stock grew to 14.8 million residences – a 432,700 improvement since 2020, or 3% growth. How did that translate to fo ..read more

By Holden Lewis | NerdWallet If you’re in the market for a home, you might wonder how you’ll be affected by a class-action lawsuit involving real estate agents and commissions. On April 23, a judge granted preliminary approval to the settlement proposed in March by the National Association of Realtors, which means new rules are on track to go into effect in July or August. None of which means you have to suspend your home search. Here’s what to know about working with a buyer’s agent this season. What are the new rules? In the lawsuit Burnett v. National Association of Realtors et al., a group ..read more

The average rate on a 30-year mortgage climbed this week to its highest level in more than five months, pushing up borrowing costs for prospective homebuyers in what’s typically the housing market’s busiest stretch of the year. The rate rose to 7.22% from 7.17% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.39%. When mortgage rates rise, they can add hundreds of dollars a month in costs for borrowers. That limits how much homebuyers can afford at a time when a relatively limited number of homes on the market coupled with heightened competition for the most ..read more

Three years ago, as COVID-19 ravaged the nation, California’s population did something it had not done in the state’s recorded history: It fell. Also see: Southern California leads state’s 1st population gain since 2019 At the time, the state, the most populous in the nation, had just under 40 million people. The decline, while a blow, was not unexpected. Growth had been slowing for some time. The Trump administration had put the brakes on legal immigration. The pandemic was cutting a brutal swath through the state, particularly among seniors. As remote-work options made it easier for some emp ..read more

New fronts constantly open in California’s political guerrilla war between state and local officials over housing. The Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom have issued a steady stream of laws and regulations aimed at forcing the state’s nearly 500 cities to embrace housing development, particularly apartments for low-income families. Communities that shun such housing, saying it degrades the bucolic ambience of their neighborhoods, respond by dragging their feet, challenging the state’s authority in court or fashioning new barriers. The state counters with threats to cut off funds for public work ..read more

California posted its first population increase since the pandemic struck – a gain that was driven geographically from the south. The California Department of Finance counted 67,100 more residents in the past year to 39.13 million as of Jan. 1. State demographers connected the growth, the first increase since 2019, to legal foreign immigration and “natural” growth – births vs. deaths. California’s population dropped by an average 196,000 residents per year in 2020 to 2022. In the 2010s, California added on average 240,000 residents per year. When you ponder the 2023 reversal by county, you se ..read more

By JANIE HAR | Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO — A wealthy Silicon Valley-backed campaign to build a green city for up to 400,000 people in the San Francisco Bay Area has submitted what it says are enough signatures to qualify the initiative for the November election. The campaign submitted more than 20,000 signatures but would need only about 13,000 valid ones to qualify for the ballot. If verified by Solano County’s elections office, voters will decide in the fall whether to allow urban development on land currently zoned for agriculture. The land-use change would be necessary for the develop ..read more

US home-price gains accelerated in February, extending a streak of increases that has pushed many would-be buyers to the sidelines. Prices nationally climbed 6.4% from a year earlier, an S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller index shows. That’s larger than the 6% annual gain in January. Purchasing a home is more expensive than ever in many areas of the country after run-ups in both prices and mortgage rates over the past couple of years. While new listings have ticked up recently, giving buyers more choices, inventory is still stuck well below historic levels, so competition remains intense. “Followi ..read more