Web Version [link removed] | Update Preferences [link removed] CBRT in the News Calif. Lawmakers ‘Significantly Amending’ Bill To Renegotiate, Break Leases

The authors of California’s Senate Bill 939 will announce critical changes Tuesday to limit its scope and eliminate the lease termination provision, which was one of the most contentious parts of proposed legislation that has the commercial real estate industry up in arms.

To address concerns from landlords and gain support for struggling tenants, Senator Scott Wiener told Commercial Observer that he is “significantly amending the bill” ahead of tomorrow’s Appropriations Committee hearing in Sacramento. That includes ditching the plan to allow financially-impacted tenants to end their leases if they didn’t come to a new agreement with landlords after 30 days.

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According to media reports, the California Business Roundtable said it was prepared to sue to block the bill as it was proposed in May. Sandy Sigal, CEO and founder of NewMark Merrill Companies — which operates shopping centers around the region — said SB 939 is a “bad piece of legislation” that makes landlords the “monkey in the middle.”

Read More [[link removed]] Business Climate and Job Creation Sobering Jobs Outlook: ‘We’re Expecting A Long Haul’

Although workers have begun returning to restaurants, retailers and other businesses hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, layoffs are seeping through sections of the job market that previously escaped major damage.

On Thursday, the Labor Department said more than 1.5 million Americans filed new state unemployment claims last week — the lowest number since the crisis began, but far above normal levels.

A further 700,000 workers who were self-employed or otherwise ineligible for state jobless benefits filed new claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a federal aid program.

The overall number of workers collecting state benefits fell slightly in the most recent seasonally adjusted tally, to 20.9 million in the week ended May 30, from a revised 21.3 million the previous week.

Read More [[link removed]] ‘Volatility Is Everywhere:’ The Market Tactic That’s Driving Stocks Haywire

Markets were once dominated by bulls who thought stocks would go up and bears who thought they would go down. These days, another animal is on the rise. It doesn’t much care what stocks do, as long as they do something.

These investors are focused on volatility, the amount of movement in prices over time. In recent years, volatility has gone from a specialty of derivatives traders to a vehicle for trading in its own right. Investors big and small are wagering hundreds of billions of dollars on volatility, including by betting directly on the moves of measures like the S&P 500, shares of individual companies or oil prices.

The pandemic has cemented its arrival, luring fresh cash and interest as stock swings jumped to new levels. Since then, big moves in stocks—both up and down, including a drop of more than 1,800 points in the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Thursday—have provided traders with ample opportunity to profit.

Read More [[link removed]] Despite Jobs Rebound, Fed Officials See Long Road To Recovery

The Federal Reserve, in its first full-scale assessment of the U.S. economy as it moves through the COVID-19 pandemic, signaled Wednesday that it foresees a long and uncertain road to full recovery.

In economic projections released following a two-day meeting, the Fed indicated it was likely to hold interest rates near zero through at least 2022, which most economists said provided the clearest sign of what central bank policymakers see ahead.

“We’re not thinking about raising rates. We’re not even thinking about thinking about raising rates,” said Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell at a news conference.

Read More [[link removed]] Treasury Yields’ Retreat Signals Economic Woes

A selloff in U.S. government bonds that pushed yields to the highest levels since March petered out almost as quickly as it started, a sign economic pessimism and aggressive monetary stimulus remain powerful forces suppressing longer-term interest rates.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note dropped back below 0.7% Thursday, after mounting coronavirus cases upended investors’ hopes for a return to economic normalcy. The move followed another steep decline Wednesday, after the Federal Reserve said it had no plans to raise short-term rates through 2022 and would continue buying Treasurys at a pace of at least $80 billion a month.

Read More [[link removed]] The Economic Pain That The Unemployment Rate Leaves Out

The Department of Labor announced Friday that with a “limited resumption of economic activity,” 13.3 percent of Americans were unemployed in May. Though still high by historical standards, that’s down from 14.7 percent in April, and a pleasant surprise to many economists, who were expecting a figure closer to 20 percent.

But this statistic doesn’t tell the whole unemployment story. That is true even in ordinary times, and more so in view of the pandemic’s effect on the labor market, which has made this figure particularly incomplete as a measure of economic hardship.

Read More [[link removed]] There’s A Black Jobs Crisis. Coronavirus Is Making It Worse

After weeks of catastrophic job loss across the country, May’s labor report held out a glimmer of hope: The nation’s overall unemployment rate ticked down to 13.3%, from 14.2% in April.

But for black Americans it was more bad news: A staggering 16.8% of the African American labor force was out of work, up a notch from 16.7% in April.

In California and nationwide, the coronavirus shutdown is widening the racial divide between haves and have-nots. And the pandemic-driven economic meltdown has helped to inflame the black community’s deep sense of injustice as uprisings over police brutality spread across the country this week.

Read More [[link removed]] The Great Economic Data Crisis

Economists have long been disparaged for inaccurate predictions, but Friday's jobs report laid bare a new problem for the world's largest economy: questionable data.

Economic data is a crucial element in the movement of asset prices that determine what Americans pay for just about everything.

It's not just the stock market — the yield on U.S. Treasury bonds helps set rates for mortgages, student loans, credit cards and more.

Market moves also determine the value of assets like oil and the dollar, based largely on economic data.

Read More [[link removed]] Thousands Of Coronavirus-Infected Californians File For Workers’ Compensation

Two months after Michael McCormick lay in a San Francisco hospital bed fighting to breathe, he fought to prove he got COVID-19 on the job and deserved workers’ compensation — and won.

The psychologist said he was diagnosed with the disease caused by the coronavirus six days after he stopped going in person to Kaiser Permanente’s Daly City clinic, where he worked, unmasked, alongside doctors treating patients. After he recovered, McCormick became one of more than 5,000 Californians who have filed COVID-19 related workers’ compensation claims since January, according to state data.

Read More [[link removed]] U.S. Treasury Chief Says Considering More Direct Payments In Next Coronavirus Aid Bill

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Wednesday he would seriously consider more direct payments to individuals in the next phase of coronavirus rescue legislation, adding that funds should also be targeted to help sectors struggling to reopen, including hospitality and tourism.

Testifying before the U.S. Senate Small Business Committee, Mnuchin said the Treasury also planned to issue new guidance this week to ease rules that prohibit business owners with a criminal conviction in the past five years from accessing forgivable Paycheck Protection Program loans.

That would be reduced to three years, and Mnuchin said he was open to easing the rules further.

Read More [[link removed]] California Legislature Pressing Forward On Budget Vote Without Deal With Newsom

Legislators will vote on a new state budget Monday, even though they have yet to strike a deal with Gov. Gavin Newsom on a plan to close California’s $54.3 billion deficit.

The move could be largely procedural. State Senate and Assembly leaders said Wednesday that lawmakers plan to vote and then continue “productive” talks with Newsom, to meet a June 15 deadline for passing a budget or have their pay cut off.

Their plan is to take up a budget that legislative leaders announced last week, which differed in several respects from the version Newsom put forward in May.

Legislators were running out of time to reach a deal because of another deadline, this one requiring that the budget be in print for 72 hours before a vote. That means lawmakers have to produce the text of a budget by Friday.

Read More [[link removed]] Will California Voters Support New Taxes To Avoid Painful Budget Cuts?

When supporters of increasing commercial property taxes, reshaping property tax transfer rules and legalizing sports gambling began formulating initiatives to put before voters in November, California's economy was riding high — unemployment was at historic lows and state coffers were flush with fat surpluses.

With less than five months until Election Day, campaigns are now facing a different reality. California's economy has cratered due to the pandemic, leaving lawmakers scrambling to fill tens of billions of dollars in lost revenues.

It also reshaped the political landscape.

Read More [[link removed]] California’s Solution For A Looming COVID-19 Budget Disaster

With 45 million children in 43 states already enjoying an extended summer vacation, school boards and legislators are trying to determine how the coronavirus recession will affect K-12 funding for the next academic year and beyond.

Since U.S. lockdowns first began, governors in eight states signed bills to free up funding for disadvantaged students in poorly funded public schools, some where students often arrive hungry or have undiagnosed learning disabilities. Now, six states are considering November ballot measures to boost school funding or change their financing mechanisms.

Read More [[link removed]] Pandemic Unemployment Benefit Is Set To Expire. Will A Back-To-Work Bonus Replace It?

In a few weeks, that extra $600 a week that California’s unemployed workers now get will be gone — and it’s unlikely Washington will revive it.

To encourage people to return to work, Republican lawmakers and the White House are considering a plan to pay newly employed workers a bonus of $450 to $600 weekly for a few weeks.

The extra $600 a week was part of the March law aimed at cushioning the economic pain triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. But it expires at the end of July, and the road ahead for people without jobs, or for that matter those who find them, will be the subject of a Senate Finance Committee hearing Tuesday where Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia is among those who will testify.

Studies repeatedly show that lots of people, particularly lower-wage workers in the food, hospitality and retail industries, are getting more income not working than they were earning at the jobs they lost.

Read More [[link removed]?] 25,000 Stores Are Predicted To Close In 2020

One result of the coronavirus pandemic could be as many as 25,000 store closures announced by retailers this year, as the crisis takes a toll on many businesses, and already has pushed some over the brink and into bankruptcy.

U.S. retailers could announce between 20,000 and 25,000 closures in 2020, according to a tracking by Coresight Research, with 55% to 60% of those situated in America’s malls. That would also mark a record — which was previously the more than 9,300 locations in 2019.

A glut of vacant storefronts will leave landlords scrambling to fill those spaces or find new uses for their real estate. There are not many retailers still growing via bricks and mortar today. And if they are, many are looking to downsize to smaller shops.

Read More [[link removed]] 3 In 4 Workers Want To Stay Remote After The Pandemic - But Are Employers Ready?

In just a matter of days, the coronavirus pushed people inside their homes, accelerating a digital transformation across workplaces around the world.

Getting workers out of their homes and back into offices is going to prove harder. 77 Percent of the workforce wants to continue to work from home at least part of the time once the pandemic is over.

That’s a 132 percent increase from before the coronavirus crisis, according to the Work-from-Home Experience Survey in which more than 2,600 employees from around the world participated. A large migration from urban centers may have contributed to this shift. But are companies prepared to make the transition?

Read More [[link removed]] Shipping Industry Warns Of Trade Logjam As Crews Remain Stranded

The international shipping industry has warned of a threat to global trade from a mounting crisis on board merchant vessels, with up to 400,000 crew stranded either at sea or at home by travel restrictions because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

One German-owned tanker last week refused to sail unless replacement crew could be brought in, said industry executives and union representatives, amid concerns over rising fatigue and safety.

The fear is that others will follow after June 16, when emergency extensions to the labour agreements governing seafarers’ contracts expire. Many crew have worked several months beyond their contracts, exceeding regulatory limits, and ship owners, unions and captains have sounded the alarm over safety.

Read More [[link removed]] Black Tech CEOs Explain Why The Killing Of George Floyd Hits So Close To Home

A lot of tech CEOs have voiced their outrage at the death of George Floyd, proclaiming in tweets that #BlackLivesMatter.

Charley Moore is different — he can actually relate.

Moore, the CEO of Rocket Lawyer, said he was racially profiled just last fall, while driving in Vermont with his son, who’s in college about an hour south of Burlington. Moore said he filmed the incident on his phone from the moment the officer pulled them over, despite the fact that they weren’t speeding or breaking any clear law.

“When he saw I was recording, he said, ‘What do you do for a living?’” said Moore, whose company provides online legal services for individuals and small to medium-sized businesses. “I told him I’m an attorney and everything changed. He became Mr. Vermont nice, literally speaking to the camera.”

Read More [[link removed]] Energy and Climate Change Civil Rights Leaders Call For More Diverse Oil And Gas Industry

America’s leading civil rights leaders are calling on the oil and gas industry — dominated by white men — to hire more women and people of color.

The effort, led by Rev. Jesse Jackson and National Urban League President Marc Morial, has been underway for weeks, though the topic has taken on a new urgency in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd.

Jackson and Morial are calling on the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, a trade group representing natural-gas transportation companies, to increase racial and gender representation across the industry, including on boards of directors and C-suites.

Read More [[link removed]] Legislature Seeks Changes To California’s Cap-And-Trade Program

California air regulators could be ordered to study the state’s cap-and-trade program and make improvements to the carbon reduction measure if a proposed budget from the legislature is passed.

The Senate and Assembly are required to approve a budget by June 15, and legislators this year face a more challenging task as they wrestle with a projected $54 billion deficit and shortened budget process due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Read More [[link removed]] As EPA Steps Back, States Face Wave Of Requests For Environmental Leniency

Some of the country's most polluting industries have flooded state regulators with requests to ease environmental regulations.

Companies across the country say the pandemic is interfering with their ability to comply with laws that protect the public from pollution.

State environmental authorities are currently the only source of official information about which companies have sought regulatory relief. That's because in March, the Environmental Protection Agency told companies that they do not need to warn federal regulators if the pandemic interferes with routine pollution monitoring or testing.

That puts states alone on the front lines of environmental protection, even as they struggle to cope with the immediate effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

Read More [[link removed]] OPEC, Russia Extend Record Oil Cuts To End Of July

OPEC, Russia and allies agreed on Saturday to extend record oil production cuts until the end of July, prolonging a deal that has helped crude prices double in the past two months by withdrawing almost 10% of global supplies from the market.

The group, known as OPEC+, also demanded countries such as Nigeria and Iraq, which exceeded production quotas in May and June, compensate with extra cuts in July to September.

“Demand is returning as big oil-consuming economies emerge from pandemic lockdown. But we are not out of the woods yet and challenges ahead remain,” Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told the video conference of OPEC+ ministers.

Read More [[link removed]] BP To Cut Global Workforce By 10,000 Jobs

BP plans to cut its global workforce by 10,000 jobs, or 14%, with most of the reduction occurring by year's end, the company announced this morning.

"The majority of people affected will be in office-based jobs. We are protecting the frontline of the company and, as always, prioritizing safe and reliable operations," CEO Bernard Looney said in an email to staff that he made public.

The move will have a significant effect on senior-level workers as the company moves toward a "flatter" structure. It signals the pandemic's effect as oil companies including BP slash spending amid the crisis that has pushed prices and oil demand sharply lower.

Read More [[link removed]] SoCalGas Ramps Up Use Of Aliso Canyon, Site Of Worst Gas Leak In U.S. History

While campaigning for governor, Gavin Newsom said he was committed to shutting down the Aliso Canyon storage field, the site of a record-setting methane blowout that spewed heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere and sickened nearby residents.

But Southern California Gas Co.'s use of Aliso Canyon to provide natural gas to its customers has only grown during Newsom’s tenure, a new analysis finds.

The environmental group Food and Water Watch, which wants to see Aliso closed, analyzed publicly available data and found that SoCalGas withdrew 20 billion cubic feet of gas from the storage field this winter, primarily to heat homes in the Los Angeles area. That’s up from 14 billion cubic feet in the winter of 2018-19, and just 1 billion cubic feet the winter before that.

Read More [[link removed]] How SF Sidestepped State Law On Developing Toxic Sites

Contaminated gas stations, vehicle repair shops and parking garages have become prized development commodities in San Francisco in recent years as the city struggles with a crushing housing shortage.

But city officials have repeatedly stymied public oversight when assessing whether these chemical-tainted properties are safe for hundreds of new homes by allowing developers to bypass environmental reviews required under state law, a Chronicle investigation has found.

Read More [[link removed]] Education and Workforce Development California Schools Chief Details Plan For Reopening

It makes clear that schools will look dramatically different for California’s 6.2 million students and staff, who can expect temperature checks upon entering schools and buses, face masks for teachers and students and extensive hand washing throughout the day. It also offers suggestions for how to offer classroom instruction with smaller class sizes such as rotating students into campuses two days a week, while the remainder of days they stay home for distance learning.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating effect on everything we know about providing education,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond. “It forces us to enter into a new conversation about the way we provide instruction.”

The manual titled, “Stronger Together: A Guidebook for the Safe Reopening of California’s Public Schools,” can serve as a road map for school districts as they prepare for the return of classes in the fall, Thurmond said.

Read More [[link removed]] California To Allow Schools, Gyms, Campgrounds And More To Reopen

California state guidelines released June 5 will allow schools, gyms, bars, campgrounds and professional sports to reopen with modifications as early as Friday, according to the L.A. Times.

Restaurants, hair salons, churches and retail stores have already been allowed to reopen with specific guidance, according to the L.A. Times.

However, schools may look drastically different when students return. The Associated Press outlined the different precautions that schools may take when students return.

Read More [[link removed]] Expect Hybrid Learning To Become Norm This Fall

Students in face masks at all times. Temperature checks at the school entrance. A mix of in-class and online learning.

These are just some of the new protective guidelines released today to more than 10,000 public schools across California as they plan for a much different reopening in the fall.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond described the 62-page document as a checklist for schools to consider, however, the recommendations illustrate a number of drastic changes that will need to be made in order for students to return to their classrooms while practicing social distancing.

Read More [[link removed]] Research Shows Students Falling Months Behind During Virus Disruptions

While a nation of burned-out, involuntary home schoolers slogs to the finish line of a disrupted academic year, a picture is emerging of the extent of the learning loss among children in America, and the size of the gaps schools will be asked to fill when they reopen.

It is not pretty.

New research suggests that by September, most students will have fallen behind where they would have been if they had stayed in classrooms, with some losing the equivalent of a full school year’s worth of academic gains. Racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps will most likely widen because of disparities in access to computers, home internet connections and direct instruction from teachers.

Read More [[link removed]] California’s Online-Only Community College Is Flunking Out With Legislators

When California set aside $100 million to launch its first fully online community college, supporters led by then-Gov. Jerry Brown said the school would prepare adults stuck in dead-end careers for the modern workforce.

After two years of halting progress, state lawmakers facing a budget disaster and mounting complaints from faculty unions are pushing to scrap the college entirely.

Read More [[link removed]] Budget Crisis Threatens L.A. Teachers’ Hard-Won Gain

On January 21, 2019, Erika Jones pulled an all-nighter in Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s press office. The elementary school teacher had been sequestered there for days as part of the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) bargaining team, which was then negotiating on behalf of 30,000 striking teachers with the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).

Jones and others did yoga and played chess to stay awake. After six days of the strike, an agreement was finalized on the morning of the 22nd: Class sizes would be lowered and capped; nurses, librarians and counselors would be hired; and teachers would get raises.

On May 14 California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a state budget that would cut the Local Control Funding Formula (which is used to distribute money to public schools) by 10 percent, and Jones now worries the progress she fought for will be undone.

Read More [[link removed]] Should Police Officers Be In Schools? California Education Leaders Rethink School Safety

A movement to reform California public school policing and drastically rethink school safety is quickly gaining momentum amid nationwide protests against police brutality following the killing of George Floyd.

In Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento and San Francisco, administrators and school boards are under pressure from community groups who are renewing demands for police-free schools and calling on districts to instead hire more counselors and other student support services. In some cases, including in Oakland and San Francisco, those ideas are now winning the support of majorities of school board members.

Read More [[link removed]] Most 'Pop-Up' Child Care Centers Were Already Watching Kids Before The Pandemic

There have been several public mentions of the hundreds of "pop-up" child care centers that have sprung into action since coronavirus-induced school closures.

Most recently, Gov. Gavin Newsom's May budget revision summary said "to date, there are close to 500 temporary pop-up child care programs throughout California." Newsom designated $50 million to temporarily pay for child care for 20,000 kids of essential workers.

On March 16, California's Department of Social Services rolled out waivers meant to "help ensure that child care services are available for working families in need while schools are closed to prevent the spread of COVID-19." The waivers allow businesses to open "pop-up" child care centers and bypass the normal licensing process.

Read More [[link removed]] Infrastructure and Housing How Eviction Moratoriums Are Hurting Small Landlords—And Why That's Bad For The Future Of Affordable Housing

In the mid-1960s, Greta Arceneaux was a young mother of two in the midst of a divorce with a low-paying secretarial job and an old house in Los Angeles. Dreaming of a better life for her family, she took out a loan, tore down the aging home and used the land to build a five-unit rental complex that, she hoped, would serve both as a home for her and her children and a ticket to the middle-class.

“I was a clerk with very little means, but a whole lot of guts,” recalls Arceneaux, now 81. Her plan worked. Over the years, income from that modest rental complex enabled Arceneaux to help put her children and grandchildren through college, purchase a separate home for herself, and save for her retirement.

Then the coronavirus pandemic upended it all. When COVID-19 reached U.S. soil, killing tens of thousands of Americans and squeezing the economy, the federal government, states and municipalities issued a raft of rent protections, including months-long eviction moratoriums. While such policies were issued in good faith—they were designed to protect renters who have lost their incomes from losing the roofs over their heads, too—they have leveled a crushing blow to small, independent landlords, like Arceneaux, who rely on a handful of rental units for their livelihoods.

Read More [[link removed]] In A Surprise Move, State Courts Leave Coronavirus-Era Eviction Ban In Place

A statewide ban on evictions of renters remained in place Wednesday, as California judicial leaders, seemingly prepared to lift the moratorium they imposed two months ago, abruptly put the issue on hold to give lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom time to create a new plan.

The Judicial Council, which makes policy decisions for the state’s courts, had scheduled a vote Wednesday on a proposal to allow evictions to resume after Aug. 3. But about an hour before the vote was to have been announced, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, the council chair, announced a change of course.

“After discussions with the governor, legislative leaders and Judicial Council members — as well as hearing from residents with many different viewpoints — I have suspended for the time being the vote on the emergency rules dealing with evictions and judicial foreclosures,” Cantil-Sakauye said. “I believe the executive and legislative branches will need more time to sort through various policy proposals.”

Read More [[link removed]] California Lawmakers, Trying To Stop Evictions, Still Won’t Cancel Rent

For years, California has been gripped by a housing-affordability and homelessness crisis, which has only been amplified over the past three months by a global pandemic. As the state begins to reopen, emergency measures designed to help renters will lapse, and evictions will mount.

“There is no evidence that state or local leaders have begun to plan for what now appears to be an inevitable intensification of what was already a humanitarian crisis,” UCLA professor and public-interest attorney Gary Blasi said last month when he warned of a flood of evictions in coming months.

Read More [[link removed]] San Francisco Passes Sweeping Pandemic-Related Eviction Ban

Landlords will be permanently barred from evicting tenants if they can’t pay rent due to coronavirus-related issues, like job loss or getting sick from the virus, under legislation passed by the Board of Supervisors Tuesday.

The legislation passed 10-1, with Supervisor Catherine Stefani in dissent.

Mayor London Breed already issued an emergency order banning evictions during the public health emergency — and for two months after — to help people avoid displacement during the pandemic. She also eliminated late fees and interest and gave tenants more time to pay back their rent.

Read More [[link removed]] Landlord Group Sues City Of L.A. Over Coronavirus Anti-Eviction Protections

Southern California’s largest landlord organization has launched a legal action against the city of Los Angeles aimed at stripping away protections from evictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Apartment Assn. of Greater Los Angeles, in the federal lawsuit filed Thursday, argued that the city’s efforts to prevent evictions for those who can’t pay due to the economic or health effects of the coronavirus violate landlords’ 5th Amendment rights against government taking of their property without compensation.

The lawsuit also targets a measure passed by the L.A. City Council to halt rent increases in more than 600,000 apartments covered by the city’s rent stabilization program due to the pandemic.

Read More [[link removed]] Coronavirus Pushes Down Rents In LA County

The average asking rent in Los Angeles County declined 3.3 percent in May year-over-year, the first major drop in rent since the Great Recession a decade ago.

Data from RealPage shows asking rent dropped to $2,254 for units of all sizes, according to the L.A. Times. The drop followed April’s 0.8 percent year-over-year decline, the first since 2010.

The coronavirus pandemic resulted in a “big dropoff in overall demand,” according to RealPage chief economist Greg Willett.

Read More [[link removed]] For CA Landlords, Abysmal Is The New Normal

Kevin Conway’s June rent collections weren’t any worse than May or April, but then again those months were historically awful.

Conway, the director of acquisitions at Clovis-based IDEAL Capital Group, said he collected 87-90 percent of rent from 6,000 units throughout California. Before the pandemic, he said he was averaging a 99 percent collection rate.

“We’re trying to be proactive and working with renters and trying to get them to pay something,” Conway said.

Read More [[link removed]] Bay Area’s Dropping Rents Will Reshape Housing Market

The coronavirus pandemic is driving rents down in San Francisco and across the region, reshaping a housing market that for the past decade has generated enormous profits for residential developers while displacing tens of thousands of workers from the inner Bay Area.

Rents are down 9% from a year ago in San Francisco and over 15% in some tech hubs in the South Bay, according to a recent report by Zumper, a rental housing search engine. That trend will likely accelerate as layoffs mount and workers, newly liberated by work-from-home options, flee the Bay Area for cheaper cities, according to housing experts.

Read More [[link removed]] Wealthy Buyers Reportedly In 'Mad Rush' To Leave San Francisco

Amid the depths of a global pandemic and financial downturn, the demand for real estate is unexpectedly rocketing in wealthy regions outside San Francisco, reports Bloomberg. Agents say that demand is soaring in affluent areas around the Bay Area such as Napa, Marin and further afield in Carmel, as people who have the means look to get away from the city. Meanwhile, the market in San Francisco and Alameda County is still well below where it was last year.

“I’ve never seen the demand higher for Marin County real estate than when COVID-19 hit,” Sotheby's Josh Burns told Bloomberg this week, as real estate agents see a surprising uptick in wealthy buyers leaving San Francisco.

Read More [[link removed](Desktop)&utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral] Homelessness Jumped 13% In L.A. County, 14% In The City Before Pandemic

Despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent to curb homelessness, the number of people without a home in Los Angeles grew last year for the fifth time in the last six years, officials announced Friday. And that was before the pandemic.

The double-digit increases reported in both the city and county reflected the status in January, when the annual count is taken, and before the novel coronavirus thrashed the region’s economy, raising the likelihood of a new wave of people losing their homes.

The count “is not that helpful because the whole landscape has changed,” said Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority Executive Director Heidi Marston.

Read More [[link removed]] Editorial and Opinion This Bull Market Isn’t As Big As You Think

The gap between Wall Street and Main Street has never seemed wider—but much of it is an illusion.

Since it bottomed on March 23, the S&P 500 has shot up almost 40%—the highest return over so short a period since 1933, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. For the year-to-date, the S&P 500 is down less than 3%, counting dividends. Meanwhile, 108,000 Americans have died in a pandemic, 21 million are out of work and the country is seething with civil unrest.

This disconnect isn’t as extreme as it seems. Beneath the surface, much of the stock market is suffering, too. Most stocks are down this year, many by 20% or more. A few fortunate winners have generated big gains, fueling the misperception that losses have been minimal. The result is a market that isn’t as irrationally exuberant as it might appear.

Read More [[link removed]] Not The Time To Gut Proposition 13 And Raise Taxes

Under California law, proposed initiatives must be presented to the California Legislature in an “informational hearing” open to the public. Legislators do not vote on the proposals because these are initiatives that have already qualified for the ballot. The hearings are mostly for the benefit of policy leaders and the public.

Because the infamous “split roll” initiative has now qualified, the Legislature held a hearing in the California Legislature on Thursday. I was pleased to be one of the individuals invited to testify and explain our opposition to the measure, which would remove Proposition 13’s protection from most commercial and industrial properties, sharply raising taxes.

Read More [[link removed]] Split Roll Measure Not Only A Costly Job-Killer, But Difficult To Implement

The California Assessors’ Association has come out in opposition to a recently qualified November ballot initiative that would change Proposition 13 to require the reassessment of many commercial and industrial properties to current market value.

In a letter to state lawmakers, CAA President Don Gaekle, assessor for Stanislaus County, cited the “immense anticipated statewide implementation costs and complexities, as well as the disparate impacts to the various California counties as the reasons the assessors felt “compelled” to oppose the measure that proponents have named The California Schools and Local Communities Funding Act of 2020.

Santa Clara County Assessor Larry Stone told lawmakers during an informational hearing on June 4 that the California Assessors’ Association completed a comprehensive analysis of the so-called “split roll” initiative with the goal of answering one question: Can assessors implement the initiative?

“Our conclusion is we cannot,” he testified, “It would be impossible — not difficult, but impossible — to administer all of the provisions of the measure as it is written.”

Read More [[link removed]] Employees And Businesses Agree—It’s Time To Get Back To Work In California

Under lockdown for the past three months, millions of small businesses have fallen victim to COVID-19-induced bankruptcy, and millions more Californians have lost their jobs or been furloughed. Sustainable for a time, the cost of the necessary health precautions is now beginning to outweigh the benefits, especially as individuals become acclimated with how to responsibly leave their homes and businesses implement appropriate social distancing and other safety measures.

Though California is moving more slowly than most states, it is encouraging to see a path forward for restarting the country’s largest economy. There also appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel for eventually returning to at least some form of normalcy. Before we get there, however, it is important that businesses and their employees are aware of exactly what is at stake when operations resume—even with face masks, six feet of space, and plenty of plexiglass dividers.

Read More [[link removed]] A Rift Over Closing The Budget Deficit

As the COVID-19 pandemic alters life in California in ways never before seen, one impact is on the annual ritual of fashioning a state budget.

With just a few days remaining until the June 15 constitutional deadline for enacting a 2020-21 budget, Gov. Gavin Newsom and his fellow Democrats in the Legislature are engaged in a fairly cordial debate over closing a deficit that Newsom pegs at $54 billion.

It’s essentially a conflict over how much direct relief, if any, California can expect from President Donald Trump and Congress to cover about $15 billion of the deficit that would remain after other actions have been taken.

Read More [[link removed]] SB 939 Would Harm Business, Cripple Real Estate And Cause Job Loss

We have all seen what the damage of the COVID-19 economic shutdown looks like, and it is not pretty.

Millions of jobs lost. Businesses closed — especially small businesses. Yet, unemployment numbers and business closures do not even begin to provide the complete picture of the personal and economic damage that we need to repair.

So, the first goal of any government should be “Do no harm.”

Unfortunately, that is exactly what a recent bill proposed in the California Senate, Senate Bill 939, would do: make things worse. It would upend the real estate industry and inflict severe harm to our broader economy.

Read More [[link removed]] Rent Control Issue Will Rise In The Aftermath Of The Protests

The immediate cause of the demonstrations in Los Angeles and elsewhere following the police killing of George Floyd is well known—brutality by cops inflicting racist treatment on African Americans. But dig deeper into Floyd’s and other killings and you’ll find a more complex story.

For Los Angeles, it is a story largely shaped by racism, homelessness, income inequality and the lack of affordable housing. These factors, plus the damage inflicted by coronavirus on poor neighborhoods, should create a sense of great urgency for helping the homeless and creating more housing low income Angelenos can afford.

Read More [[link removed]] Can Small Businesses Survive This “Double Whammy”?

Zahalea Show-Anderson spent last Sunday afternoon tidying up her dojo for its grand re-opening. After nearly 10 weeks in which a coronavirus-driven shutdown kept the lights off and the doors locked, the Urban School of Self Defense, a jiu-jitsu academy in downtown Long Beach, was ready to let its students back in.

A few hours later, Show-Anderson was home in front of the TV, watching the dojo go up in flames.

“We’ve been there 25 years and there are a lot of things that money cannot buy,” she said a few days later. “There were a lot of stories in there. It’s really just going to be a memory now.”

In a week of peaceful protest against police violence, politically motivated vandalism and arson, and opportunistic theft, Show-Anderson’s academy, like many small businesses across the state, has become the collateral damage.

Read More [[link removed]] If Budget Represents Our Values, We Must Protect California’s Most Vulnerable

When California’s economy is strong, like it was in January, passing the state’s annual budget was a pleasant responsibility. Ample tax dollars and a significant surplus meant that most policy priorities received funding and those programs warranting increases received them.

However, with California now facing near record unemployment and the state’s surplus now in deficit, budgeting becomes a more solemn exercise. What’s before us today is a statement of our collective values and priorities.

In his May Budget Revise, Gov. Gavin Newsom reduced his initial $222 billion January budget to $203 billion. The reduction is a testament to the economic havoc wrought by COVID-19.

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