The Business Insider has an interesting article about New Laws Attempt to Increase Housing Stock In California. A high percentage of the homeless in the U.S. are in the State of California, and the governor has been signing a number of bills to increase the housing stock by making it easier to develop apartments and condominiums on sites that would not have normally qualified for multi-family development. The increase in housing prices by approximately 5,000 basis points since the pandemic has created a situation where most properties must be carefully screened during the commercial appraisal process to determine their highest and best use, especially in coastal areas. Many more properties qualify as tear-downs because real estate developers are willing to pay top dollar for buildable sites.
