California’s High Housing Costs: Causes and Consequences [Publication Details]

Mar 17, 2015 - California’s High Housing Costs: Causes and Consequences [Publication Details] Infographic Description: Living in decent, affordable, and reasonably located housing is vitally important to every Californian.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Detail/3214

Do Communities Adequately Plan for Housing?

Mar 8, 2017 - Regional Housing Needs Allocation Process Defines Each Community ’s Fair Share of Housing. Each community ’s fair share of housing is determined through a process known as Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA).
https://lao.ca.gov/publications/report/3605

The 2019-20 May Revision: Opportunity Zones

May 11, 2019 - Some of these programs support building of new affordably priced housing by providing direct financial assistance —typically tax credits, grants, or low-cost loans —to housing developers for the construction of new housing.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4038

Community Land Trust Property Tax Exemption

Dec 20, 2024 - Community Land Trust Property Tax Exemption December 20, 2024 Community Land Trust Property Tax Exemption Properties used to provide affordable housing to low-income Californians generally are exempt from property taxes.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4946

The Property Tax Inheritance Exclusion - The Property Tax Inheritance Exclusion [Video]

In this brief video, Principal Fiscal and Policy Analyst Brian Uhler discusses the report The Property Tax Inheritance Exclusion.
https://lao.ca.gov/Videos/Player?playlistId=111

The 2025-26 California Spending Plan: Other Provisions

Oct 16, 2025 - (Please see our post, The 2025-26 Spending Plan: Housing, Homelessness, and Local Government for more detail on the CEQA changes.) Final Year of Funding for California Education Learning Lab. The budget package includes a final year of funding totaling $5.5  million from the General Fund for the California Education Learning Lab, with the intention to eliminate the program beginning in 2026-27 (which will achieve $4  million in ongoing savings).
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5081

Evaluation of the Property Tax Postponement Program

Oct 8, 2018 - Evaluation of the Property Tax Postponement Program Executive Summary California Has High Housing Costs, but Property Tax Payments Are Near the National Average. Housing is very expensive in California —in early 2018, the typical California home cost $481,000, roughly double the price of the typical home in the United States.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3885

The Property Tax Inheritance Exclusion

Oct 9, 2017 - This limited inventory —a consequence of many factors including too little home building and an aging population —has driven up the price of housing in California and made the home buying experience more difficult for many.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3706

California’s Low-Wage Workers and Minimum Wage

Mar 11, 2024 - To shed light on this issue, we next compare the statewide minimum wage to housing costs across California ’s 58 counties. Measuring Housing Affordability. To assess housing affordability for minimum-wage workers, we compare monthly earnings for full-time workers making the main minimum wage in each county to HUD ’s estimate of “fair market rent ” for housing in that county.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4878/3

The 2025-26 Budget: Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development

Mar 18, 2025 - Prior to program participation, about one-third of LA:RISE participants had no job in the past five years, one-third were CalFresh recipients, under one-third had stable housing, and over half had been previously arrest ed.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5018