California REALTORS® urge Gov. Newsom to focus on homeownership after omitting in State of the State address

LOS ANGELES, March 8, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS^® (C.A.R.) President Otto Catrina today issued the following statement after Gov. Gavin Newsom's State of the State address: 

"The State of the State will not improve until California acts to dramatically increase the supply of ownership housing to provide working Californians the stability and prosperity that homeownership provides.

"Working Californians today are excluded from the benefits of homeownership that middle-class Californians once took for granted. California's overall homeownership rate has declined to just 55 percent. Among the state's largest ethnic group — Latinos — it's 44 percent, and only 37 percent of Black families own their home. This is unacceptable.

"Homeownership, according to the California Housing Finance Agency, is the most effective way that people build wealth and stabilize communities. However, the housing supply crisis has pushed the median home price sky high; on track to surpass $830,000 in 2022. This, in a state with a median household income of about $75,000. A stable and prosperous state cannot just have homes priced for software engineers and the already wealthy. 

"The lack of homeownership opportunity is the primary reason the middle class and the businesses that employ them move out of state, creating the growing and troubling income and wealth inequality we see around us today.

"REALTORS^®, as part of a bipartisan coalition, have offered common sense solutions to help address this crisis. California must prioritize and act to create homeownership opportunities for all of our diverse state. First, California should shift 30 percent of all federal housing funds coming to the state to homeownership funding — 20 percent to go to homeownership housing production and 10 percent to mortgage assistance. The state should also set aside $200 million for new construction within the CalHome program. And California's 2022-23 state budget should allocate a minimum of 20 percent of total state housing funding to the production of owner-occupied, deed-restricted affordable housing for lower income Californians.

"A commitment to homeownership from our state's leaders is essential to creating equity, economic stability, and opportunity. The 217,000 members of the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS^® stand ready to support policies to make real the promise of Homeownership for all Californians."

Leading the way…^® in California real estate for more than 110 years, the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS^® (www.car.org) is one of the largest state trade organizations in the United States with more than 217,000 members dedicated to the advancement of professionalism in real estate. C.A.R. is headquartered in Los Angeles.

SOURCE CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (C.A.R.)