The California Association of Realtors Expo and what I learned there

I attended several interesting panels at this past week's C.A.R. Expo and actually learned stuff! The most interesting speaker was Joel Kotkin. (Name should link.) That's him on the right, with the C.A.R. president. If his name is familiar, it's because he is an internationally-recognized authority on global, economic, political and social trends.  He also is an expert statistician. Major takeaways:
- California is losing population, not gaining population.
- Most Gen-Xers and Millennials want to own a home.
- Of those, 81% want a single family home.
- The biggest exodus from the state is by Gen-Xers. Hence, we are losing our work force.
- One of the major reasons for the exit is the lack of housing affordability. (No surprise there.)
This is certainly contrary to most of the factoids that we've heard, such as "we have to build more housing for our increasing population," "the housing needs to be in a high-rise close to major transit centers (i.e. downtown)." He also said that the regulatory climate in CA makes it almost impossible to build anything but multi-family housing near public transportation.  Interesting.  Mr. Kotkin has just published a book titled "The Human City: Urbanism for the Rest of Us." I bought a copy and am looking forward to starting it.

Other convention take-aways: Instagram! Snapchat! 3-D marketing! Info on independent brokerages (like Judy Graff Properties). The unsustainability of rising housing prices except in the luxury market! PM me for more info.