The median Bay Area home price rose to within a hair of its all-time high last month, as affordability continues to decline across the region, dipping close to an all-time low in San Francisco, according to new reports on the housing market.
Rising housing costs are propping up inflation for consumers, despite relief at the gasoline pump and mild price increases for many goods.
Enticed by the fat fees generated by foreign and out-of-state students, who pay supplemental tuition ($24,700 for the 2015-16 school year), the UC system has begun to prioritize cash flow over local connections. More and more parents feel like Cal and others have slammed the door in the face of their children. Just look at the statistics for entering freshman: 45 percent of offers at UC Berkeley went to out-of-state and foreign students; the number was 42 percent at UCLA, 39 percent at UC San Diego and 35 percent at UC Davis.
That mandate could then become a weapon for anti-development groups to sue builders under the California Environmental Quality Act, said Richard Lyon, the association’s senior vice president.
Senate Bill 32, which would extend and expand California’s pollution reduction targets into the year 2050, would likely create a mandate that all homes produce zero net energy, warned a report issued Monday by the California Building Industry Association.
Nearly two years later, the utility announced Monday that it would credit or refund tens of millions of dollars to customers who were overbilled during the botched rollout, under a proposed class-action lawsuit settlement between the utility and aggrieved customers.
Interaction between SB 32 and CEQA would likely, at a minimum, result in the immediate imposition of a Zero Net Energy (ZNE) standard on new construction in California. The initial effect would be a sharp reduction in new construction activity, which would persist until developers and contractors acquired a sufficient level of expertise and capacity to satisfy the stringent new ZNE requirements. Such a slowdown would have ripple effects throughout the entire economy, potentially reducing gross state product by $18 billion, and employment by 285,000 jobs.
Today’s map cuts through this clutter, presenting effective tax rates on owner-occupied housing. This is the average amount of residential property tax actually paid, expressed as a percentage of home value.
Californian cities continued their reign atop the list of most-expensive markets, with San Jose commanding a median sales price of $980,000.
During the 2010-14 period, for example, Los Angeles County’s population grew by nearly a quarter-million, but it added fewer than 40,000 housing units. During the same period, San Francisco, despite its geographic limitations, grew by nearly 50,000, but built fewer than 10,000 housing units.
But never mind: If every car in America were electric and recharged using only renewables, the impact would be less than 2% of global emissions. Even the new Obama power-plant rules, which would be far more consequential, would prevent only 0.03 degrees Celsius of warming by 2100 (and then only if climate models predicting substantial warming are right).
The price index for personal-consumption expenditures, the Fed’s preferred inflation measure, rose 0.2% in June from a month earlier, the Commerce Department said. From a year earlier, prices were up just 0.3%.
The implication is the federal government is fueling a vicious cycle of higher prices and government aid that ultimately could cost taxpayers and price some Americans out of higher education, similar to what some economists contend happened with the housing bubble.
The report notes that the state’s renewable-energy mandates and carbon cap-and-trade program have forced electricity prices to rise, as they have implemented a “regressive energy tax, imposing proportionally higher costs in certain counties, such as California’s inland and Central Valley regions, where summer electricity consumption is highest but household incomes are lowest.”
The U.S. average was $2.67 Friday, while California was still much higher at $3.79. The AAA estimates a huge drop could save drivers $500 by the end of the year.