Assembly Bill 1903, authored by Oakland Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, aimed to reshape how disputes over alleged construction defects are resolved between builders and homeowners. Wicks and other supporters argued the measure would reduce costly litigation that has made developers wary of building condos in California for decades.

The bill had wide backing from real estate groups, pro-housing “Yes In My Backyard” advocates and several city governments. It cleared the Senate without a single no vote late Monday night, after 11:15 p.m. But it never made it back to the Assembly floor for the final procedural vote — known as concurrence — needed to send it to the governor’s desk. When the legislative session officially ended at midnight, the bill died without ever facing formal opposition.

Wicks did not hide her frustration. In a statement issued Tuesday, she said she was “incredibly disappointed and frustrated” that the bill “was ultimately held by the Senate,” after what she described as months of negotiation and coalition-building.

“I had a bill Friday morning that I truly believe would have unlocked condo construction to serve our working-class families desperate for homeownership opportunities,” Wicks said.

A spokesperson for Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón, a Santa Barbara Democrat, did not respond to requests for comment on why the bill stalled.

For much of the year, the measure faced resistance from the Consumer Attorneys of California, a powerful lobbying group representing trial lawyers, as well as several homeowners associations. They argued the bill would make it too difficult for homeowners to pursue legal action against builders responsible for legitimate construction flaws.

That opposition eased over the weekend after Wicks agreed to soften the bill’s language. The revised version dropped provisions that would have limited which defects could be litigated and how they could be identified. Instead, it simply required homeowners to document defects clearly, give builders a chance to make repairs, and release builders from further liability once repairs were completed.

Despite the compromise, the bill ran out of time. Wicks said she remains hopeful that a similar, potentially stronger proposal could return in a future legislative session.

A representative from the Consumer Attorneys of California did not respond to a request for comment before publication.

Sacramento’s final hours of a legislative session are notoriously chaotic. State law requires most bills to be finalized by the end of August in even-numbered years, and legislation must sit in print for 72 hours before a vote can occur. According to longtime Capitol lobbyist Chris Micheli, a handful of bills almost always fail to cross the finish line simply due to time constraints.

This isn’t the first high-profile housing bill to meet such a fate. In 2020, Wicks made headlines when she stood on the Assembly floor, wearing a mask and holding her newborn daughter, to plead unsuccessfully for the passage of Senate Bill 1120, a proposal to allow duplex construction in single-family zoned neighborhoods. That policy eventually passed the following year in a different form.

Another bill this session, Senate Bill 1013 by Riverside Democratic Sen. Sabrina Cervantes, which sought new restrictions on automated license plate readers, met a similar end when it was held in the Assembly without a final vote — reportedly the result of political tension between the two chambers, according to Politico.

Whether AB 1903’s demise was the result of simple scheduling problems or deliberate maneuvering remains unclear. Dan Dunmoyer, president of the California Building Industry Association, which supported the bill, suspects it may have been a bit of both.

“It appears this bill was slow-walked — or not walked at all,” Dunmoyer said. “But I can’t tell if this is truly hostage-taking or things just got jammed up.”

The final negotiations over the bill’s language took place between Wicks and Sen. Tom Umberg, a Santa Ana Democrat who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. Umberg, who shared concerns raised by trial attorneys and homeowners associations, reportedly continued negotiating until just hours before the 72-hour print deadline expired Friday evening.

“The chair was moving the goal posts and running out the clock,” said Michael Lane, a lobbyist with the Bay Area-based think tank SPUR. “There’s probably lots of blame to go around, but I think he was being very sly.”

Umberg’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

At the heart of the debate is a long-standing concern among builders and housing advocates: that California’s legal environment discourages condominium construction. Because condos share structural elements, builders say they are especially vulnerable to defect litigation involving multiple homeowners banding together, often through homeowners associations.

In a state where new housing production tends to split between expensive single-family homes and rental apartments, condos have long been viewed as a potential middle ground — offering more attainable ownership opportunities. Yet developers have shied away from building them in large numbers over the past two decades, a trend the bill’s supporters attribute largely to litigation risk.

While comprehensive statewide data on construction defect lawsuits is limited, developers say the threat is significant. “One hundred percent of our condos are sued for defect,” Dunmoyer said in an earlier interview. “If the trial lawyers convince the legislature that it’s okay to file a defect claim when there’s no defect, then we just don’t build condos. It’s not complicated.”

A recent study by Economic & Planning Systems estimated that litigation risk adds roughly 1.9 to 4.4 percent to the cost of condo construction. While that may seem modest, advocates argue it’s enough to push many multifamily developers toward building rental units instead — a dynamic that, for now, remains unchanged as California lawmakers look toward next session to try again.

Original source: CalMatters

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Her building didn’t burn, but thick smoke settled into it for days during the January 2025 firestorm. Before bringing her two children — one in college, one 12 years old — back inside, Barel wanted assurance the unit was truly safe. An independent test she paid for turned up toxic residue. Now she’s waiting on additional testing her landlord must conduct under a new California law.

Her landlord did have the apartment cleaned back in March, but Barel says the job was surface-level at best. She later found personal belongings tucked behind furniture and under the sofa — evidence, she said, that floors and walls were never properly scrubbed.

“The issue is that I have no control,” Barel said. “It really depends on the conversation between my landlord and their insurance company. If the landlord does the minimum, or if they don’t feel the need to fight or be insistent on certain things, then it’s not going to happen.”

Barel’s situation reflects a broader truth about California’s property insurance market: its stability — or lack thereof — doesn’t just affect homeowners. Renters, who make up roughly 44% of the state’s population, feel the ripple effects too, whether through rent hikes, housing shortages, or delays in rebuilding after disaster strikes.

This November, Californians will choose a new insurance commissioner, a position expected to play a significant role in both the recovery from last year’s devastating Los Angeles County fires and the broader health of the state’s insurance market.

Barel carries her own renters policy, which costs her $114 a year thanks to a multi-policy discount. So far, her insurer has paid out $6,000 in loss-of-use coverage — money meant to cover extra living expenses for displaced tenants — along with $2,100 toward damaged personal property. She recently completed a full inventory of her belongings, which she plans to submit toward her policy’s $35,000 cap for personal items.

“I was stuck for a long time,” she said. “It’s extremely overwhelming. There are a lot of personal things. These are our stories. This is our life.”

Her renters policy didn’t cover the cost of hiring an industrial hygienist to test her unit — a step she took on her own. That testing found elevated levels of lithium, chromium and other heavy metals, likely tied to smoke and ash from the fire. Because the blaze burned through the wildland-urban interface, the report noted, smoke in such fires often carries a more toxic mix of chemicals and particulates than typical structure fires. The hygienist recommended further testing and a deeper cleaning.

After enlisting help from the city of Pasadena to pressure her landlord, Barel is hopeful she’ll soon be able to leave the rental unit in Lincoln Heights where she’s been staying since the fire. FEMA has been covering that temporary housing, but that assistance is scheduled to run out in October, adding urgency to her situation. Throughout it all, she has continued paying rent on her original apartment.

“It’s not a possibility for me to move elsewhere,” she said. “We have rent control. It was perfect for the kids when we moved in. It had a courtyard; it was near the schools; everything.”

In nearby Altadena, which absorbed the worst of the Eaton Fire’s destruction, tenants made up 22% of households, and more than a third of the rental market operated under rent control, according to research from the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute. Researchers found that renter households in Altadena generally earned far less than homeowner households before the fire — and were more vulnerable to seeing what should have been temporary displacement turn into long-term housing instability.

Renters insurance

California doesn’t mandate renters insurance, though many landlords require tenants to carry their own policies.

Emily Rogan, senior program officer with the consumer advocacy group United Policyholders, urges renters to get coverage precisely because of situations like Barel’s.

“Renters insurance buys you a deep breath as you think about where to go next,” Rogan said, noting how many difficult decisions displaced renters face after a disaster.

She also pointed to a shifting political landscape around disaster aid. “In the current political climate, there’s a trend where FEMA declarations are not as frequent as they used to be,” she said — meaning less federal assistance may be available when disaster strikes.

With inflation driving up the cost of replacing nearly everything, Rogan said renters insurance remains valuable “even if you fall under the camp of ‘Oh, my stuff’s not worth much.'”

Insurance’s ripple effects on rent and housing supply

Interviews with an insurance broker, an affordable-housing operator and several landlords revealed a mixed and often frustrating picture of California’s insurance market, which continues to strain under wildfire risk, rising litigation costs and insurers pulling back from writing new commercial policies.

Robert Guerrero, an insurance broker based in Madera County, said Mercury Insurance has resumed offering new policies in several counties — though not in the areas where his clients are located. Some property owners are turning to non-admitted carriers, insurers not licensed or backed by the state, which means policyholders bear more risk if the company fails. The California Department of Insurance maintains a public list of these so-called surplus-line insurers, and customers who choose to buy from one must sign a disclosure acknowledging the added risk.

“It’s still very dicey out there,” said Guerrero, whose firm handles homeowner, auto, commercial and life insurance policies.

Mike Placido, who owns four rental units in San Gabriel and a duplex in Alhambra, spoke with CalMatters two years ago about how rising insurance costs were squeezing landlords and tenants alike. Since then, he said, premium increases have slowed to a more manageable pace.

“It’s not causing me to raise rents as dramatically as I did before,” Placido said. “I guess the market has stabilized.”

He still carries a couple of policies through State Farm, but relies on non-admitted carriers for the rest — a situation that leaves him uneasy.

“There’s some aspect of safety when you’re going with a big company,” he said. “You don’t know if a smaller insurance company will be around long term.”

Uwe Karbenk, co-owner of a 33-unit apartment complex in San Bernardino, said his outlook hasn’t improved much. His premiums dipped slightly last year but have since climbed back to where they were two years ago. He raised rents in 2024, held them steady in 2025, and plans another increase this year.

Karbenk said he’s invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in electrical upgrades and a new roof for the building — improvements that, so far, haven’t translated into lower premiums.

For fire coverage specifically, he said insurers are scrutinizing properties far more closely. “They really check the building and they will write you up for stuff they don’t like. They call it recommendations, but it’s a stipulation. You need to do it, otherwise you risk cancellation of insurance.”

His takeaway: “Repairs are so much more expensive and replacement costs are so much higher. There’s no way around paying much more for insurance.”

Affordable housing developers are feeling similar pressure. Little Tokyo Service Center, a Los Angeles-based community development nonprofit that manages more than 1,000 affordable housing units across the region, has watched its insurance costs balloon in recent years.

Between 2023 and 2024, the organization’s annual insurance bill jumped from roughly $800,000 to $2.7 million, according to Erich Nakano, the group’s former executive director and current director of special projects. Deductibles that once ranged from $10,000 to $50,000 climbed past $100,000.

To cope, the organization has had to dip into its financial reserves, since raising rents significantly isn’t an option for affordable housing tenants. Last year, Little Tokyo Service Center joined an insurance captive — a self-insurance pool made up of roughly 40 organizations nationwide, including for-profit real estate firms, banding together to share risk.

“It’s an existential crisis,” Nakano said. “We can’t sustain these levels of insurance premiums.”

For the record: Barel currently resides in Lincoln Heights, not Altadena.

Original source: CalMatters

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The legislation became law over the weekend despite President Donald Trump declining to sign it. Trump withheld his signature not because he opposed the bill, but as a protest over the Senate’s failure to advance a separate, unrelated voter ID measure he had championed. Because he did not formally veto the housing package, it took effect automatically, without the fanfare that typically accompanies a presidential signing ceremony.

The timing is notable for congressional Republicans, who might otherwise have used the bill as a showcase achievement heading into a midterm election cycle in which affordability concerns are weighing heavily on voters. Instead, the law’s arrival came and went with little public celebration.

Housing advocates are calling the measure a rare and consequential moment for federal policy.

“I think the last time Congress passed anything of this magnitude, many of you were not even alive,” said Stephen Russell, president of the San Diego Housing Federation. “It is almost a once-in-a-lifetime event.”

The scale of the problem the law aims to address is stark. Most housing analysts estimate the country needs millions of additional units to bring costs down to a reasonable level, and California’s urban centers — including fast-growing pockets of the Inland Empire — carry an outsized share of that need. Nationally, the median home price hit a record $440,600 in June, according to the National Association of Realtors. In California, that figure would barely buy a starter home; the statewide median reached its own record of $930,260 just a month earlier.

The new law bundles together a range of tools rather than a single sweeping mandate. Among the provisions likely to matter most for California communities:

A system of federal grants that rewards cities for approving and building more housing, while withholding funding from those that lag behind — a carrot-and-stick approach aimed at breaking through local resistance to new development.

Regulatory changes designed to lower costs for manufactured and factory-built homes, an option increasingly seen as a faster, cheaper alternative to traditional construction, particularly for lower-income buyers.

A new program intended to speed up long-term recovery efforts following natural disasters such as wildfires — a provision with clear relevance for fire-prone regions across California, including areas of the Inland Empire that have faced their own blazes in recent years.

Whether the law delivers the kind of large-scale relief its backers are promising remains to be seen. But for a state where the gap between wages and housing costs continues to widen, even incremental federal action is being welcomed by local housing officials who have long argued that state and local efforts alone cannot solve the crisis.

Original source: CalMatters

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A recent analysis by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) revealed that the state added 677,000 housing units over the past six years, even as its population grew by only 39,000. Despite this increase in housing, the market remains tight. Owner vacancy rates dropped from 1.2% to 0.8%, while rental vacancies stood at just 4.3% in 2024, well below the national average of 5.9%.

“The state has made some headway in adding housing units, but it’s been playing catch-up for so long that the progress hasn’t been enough to significantly ease the market,” said Joel Berner, senior economist at Realtor.com.

California’s housing shortage remains a major issue, with the state needing an estimated 2.5 million more homes, according to a 2022 estimate by the state’s housing agency. PPIC’s report also highlights a demographic shift that’s influencing the market, as household sizes have decreased over time. Between 2019 and 2024, the state lost 82,000 households with children and gained 722,000 households without them.

“Fewer people in each household means we need more households overall,” Berner explained.

The aging population of California is also contributing to this trend, with 16.5% of the state’s population now 65 or older, a figure projected to rise to 24.9% by 2050.

In response, homebuilding has picked up, with accessory dwelling units (ADUs) becoming more common. ADUs are secondary living units on the same property as a primary home, and California has encouraged their construction through policy changes aimed at reducing local restrictions.

“The state has made notable progress in encouraging ADU construction, which should be recognized,” Berner said. “These units are playing an important role in addressing the housing shortage where it’s most needed.”

While these efforts show progress, they haven’t fully addressed the crisis. New homes continue to be quickly absorbed, and vacancy rates remain low. Berner pointed out that despite California housing 11.5% of the U.S. population, the state only accounted for 7.3% of newly permitted housing units last year. “The pace is still not fast enough,” he said.

PPIC’s analysis also noted that household formation among young adults has risen, suggesting more younger residents are starting their own households. However, the state will need more affordable housing to allow these residents to take that next step.

Of the 1.2 million housing units planned for California, only 712,000 are designated for moderate-income or lower households, which is about half of what is necessary to meet demand, according to Realtor.com. This gap could pose a significant challenge moving forward.

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Sales of existing, single-family homes in California totaled 274,820 in February on a seasonally adjusted annualized rate, up 7% from January’s total, but down 0.3% from February 2025.

In the Inland Empire, sales were up 9% from last month, but down 3.7% from last year, while in Riverside County sales were up 20% from January but down 4% from February of 2025.

“Following a soft start to the year, the housing market regained momentum in February, with both sales and prices showing solid gains,” CAR President Tamara Suminski said in a statement. “The conflict in the Middle East is creating some uncertainty for the broader economy and financial markets, which could lead to some short-term hesitation in the housing market. We remain hopeful though that the situation will stabilize in the weeks ahead, allowing market fundamentals and buyer and seller confidence to reassert themselves.”

Statewide prices were also up last month, with California’s median home price rising 0.9% from January to February, to $830,370. That represents a 0.2% increase from one year ago.

In the Inland Empire, the average price rose 1.1% in February to $601,350, 1.6% lower than February 2025. Riverside County’s average price was down 1.3% last month to $631,000, which is 2.4% lower than one year ago.

“While mortgage rates remain below year-ago levels, they recently jumped to their highest level in seven months and could temper buyer momentum as we head into the spring homebuying season,” CAR Senior Vice President and Chief Economist Jordan Levine said. “However, many homeowners remain locked in to historically low rates, and inventory remains tight, so any stabilization in rates could help bolster home prices in the spring market despite ongoing affordability and economic challenges.”

The county with the highest median home price in California in February was Mono County at $2.35 million, after increasing 50% from last month. The lowest median price was Lassen County’s $199,000, after a 22% drop from last month.

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They generally need to provide first and last month’s rent along with a security deposit. Two of the less-talked about items, however, are refrigerators and stoves, which are not considered necessities by the state.

Many landlords do not offer the appliances to incoming renters, passing on the direct cost to their tenants.

That arrangement may be changing in California, due to legislation being proposed in Sacramento.

Why don’t landlords currently provide refrigerators?

Simply put, there is no requirement.

California law requires any building with a dwelling unit to maintain “certain characteristics in order to be tenantable.” That means landlords are on the hook for adequate heating and hot water systems.

Legally, fridges and stoves are classified as amenities and considered nonessential.

That language has made California an outlier. A 2022 Times analysis shows that the number of residents who entered into new leases without fridges and stoves is much higher in California than in any other state.

What does the added cost mean?

The average monthly rent in the city of Los Angeles is $2,347, higher than the national average of $1,995, according to Zillow.

First and last month’s rent plus a security deposit can force a new renter to have ready several thousands of dollars just to move in. And much more in wealthier parts of the county, where average rents hover near $4,000 — places like Ladera Heights and Larchmont Village.

If they don’t come with a fridge, plan to fork out another $600 to $2,300 for a new one, product analysts say, or plunge into the underground fridge market for a used one.

Assembly Bill 628 would put landlords in charge of buying and repairing the appliances

Assemblymember Tina McKinnor (D-Hawthorne), whose 61st District covers communities from Inglewood to Marina del Rey, introduced AB 628 to make refrigerators and stoves required appliances, not amenities. If passed, landlords would have to provide them starting Jan. 1, 2026.

“We know that people are really struggling out there with the high cost of food, gas, household goods, and on top of that, lots of people spend more than half their income on rent,” she said.

Ultimately, McKinnor wants renters to have one less payment to think about when entering a new lease.

She said the landlord will be in charge of fixing or replacing a refrigerator and stove, as are now with heaters.

Would the new requirement hike up rental prices?

In Los Angeles apartments subject to the Rent Stabilization Ordinance, landlords can only increase the rent once every 12 months by a limited percentage.

There are exceptions to the RSO, though, which include single-family homes, affordable housing, luxury housing units exempted by the Los Angeles Housing Department, rentals built after Oct. 1, 1978, and units in commercial buildings that converted to housing after Oct. 1, 1978.

What’s its future?

The bill is currently being read and amended. It will need to pass both the Assembly and Senate before potentially being signed by the governor in the fall.

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