LAKE COUNTY
Thompson announces staff serving Lake County
Prior to his work with Team Thompson, Luca served as the head coach of Davis Senior High School’s speech and debate program.
On Wednesday day, Rep. Mike Thompson (CA-04) announced that Luca Moretti has been promoted to serve as a Field Representative covering Lake County.
“I’m excited for Luca’s new role on our team serving the people of Lake County,” said Thompson. “Luca has been with Team Thompson for over two years now and was a favorite mentee of our late Deputy Chief of Staff, Brad Onorato. Luca has spent his time with our team getting to know the Lake Community and I could not imagine anyone better suited to carry on Brad’s legacy.
“Luca is a dedicated public servant and a longtime member of our community, and I know he will provide excellent service to residents as Team Thompson’s ‘eyes and ears’ of Lake County.”
Luca Moretti grew up in the 4th District, where he attended Willett Elementary, Emerson Junior High, Davis Senior High School, and Sacramento City College before graduating from UC Davis where he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science-public service.
Luca served as a Constituent Services Representative for Rep. Thompson’s Napa Office and will continue to help lead the Congressman’s Student Leadership Council. He will now serve California’s Fourth District as a Field Representative for Lake County.
Rep. Thompson and his staff support Fourth District residents in communicating with federal agencies and accessing federal resources and benefits. Constituents are encouraged to contact Rep. Thompson’s team with questions regarding Social Security and Medicare benefits, immigration matters, federal worker injury compensation, tax issues and IRS services, small business concerns, federal grant applications, student loans, military academy applications, military awards and commendations, veterans’ benefits, or any other issue facing themselves or their community.
—Submitted
CALIFORNIA
Dramatic change would be required to fix California’s homebuying affordability mess
First, consider the estimated my trusty spreadsheet compared home-price increases with income growth for 10 large California metropolitan areas using housing indexes by ICE, a mortgage-tech firm, and pay stats from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis. median house payment for these California metros.
In 2018, payments on the typical $509,400 home purchase ran $2,020 monthly with an average 4.3% mortgage rate, assuming a 20% downpayment.
That was 22% of a typical house hunter’s $109,100 income, including two earners.
Then, contemplate the payment on today’s $759,500 median-priced home. The payment doubled to $4,000 monthly with 6.9% rates.
The mortgage now gobbles up 32% of the $148,500 income that risen 36% in six years.
So, what would it take to return this payment burden to pre-coronavirus levels?
Rates would have to fall to 3.5%. Incomes would need to surge 50%.Or prices would need to drop 33%. Or some combination of the three.
This lack of affordability is why one-third fewer California homes will be sold this year than in 2018.
How did we get here?
Remember that the housing market was upended by several things during the pandemic: a demand for more living space, mortgage rates under 3% and stimulus checks boosting incomes.
Now let’s look at how six years of home appreciation through October contrasts with rising per-capita incomes during the six years ending in 2023.
In eight of these 10 California metros, home-price gains outpaced incomes. Here’s how they ranked by the gap …
Bakersfield: 63% gains in home values compared with 29% income growth.
Inland Empire: 65% home gain vs. 37% income growth.
San Diego: 66% home gain vs. 39% income growth.
Fresno: 60% home gain vs. 33% income growth.
Ventura County: 51% home gain vs. 36% income growth.
LA-OC: 50% home gain vs. 39% income growth.
Sacramento: 46% home gain vs. 35% income growth.
Stockton: 50% home gain vs. 45% income growth.
And in two California metros, incomes beat home prices …
San Jose: 34% home gains topped by 54% income growth.
San Francisco: 26% home gains topped by 46% income growth.
Sliver of hope
For homebuyers, a little bit of good news: appreciation is cooling.
Price gains in the 12 months ending in October were significantly smaller than the previous five-year appreciation pace in all but one of the 10 metros.
San Diego saw the biggest chill, with prices rising 3.2% in the past year – down from annual average gains of 9.9% between 2018 and 2023. That is a 6.7-percentage-point cooldown.
San Jose was the lone spot without a dip in appreciation. Its 5.1% year’s gain was a smidgen above the 5% yearly increases of 2018-23.
Here’s how the nine other metros fared by ICE math, ranked by appreciation chill …
Inland Empire: 3.5% year’s gain vs. averaging 9.8% annual increases in 2018-23 – 6.3 points cooler.
Sacramento: 1.7% year’s gain vs. 7.5% annually in 2018-23 – 5.8 points cooler.
Bakersfield: 4.1% year’s gain vs. up 9.4% annually in 2018-23 – 5.3 points cooler.
Stockton: 2.9% year’s gain vs. up 7.9% annually in 2018-23 – 5 points cooler.
Ventura County: 3.3% year’s gain vs. up 7.9% yearly in 2018-23 – 4.7 points cooler.
Fresno: 4.2% year’s gain vs. up 8.9% annually in 2018-23 – 4.7 points cooler.
Los Angeles-Orange County: 3.9% year’s gain vs. up 7.7% annually in 2018-23 – 3.7 points cooler.
San Francisco: 1.3% year’s gain vs. up 4.4% annually in 2018-23 – 3.1 points cooler.
But smaller home price gains are by no means a cure, because “affordability” really means lowering prices.
—Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at jlansner@scng.com
