The Climate Action Plan sets new real estate mandates

The City of San Diego’s proposed Climate Action plan includes mandates that would have a tremendous adverse impact on the real estate market, on the homeowner, on small business owners, and the local economy. 

Leslie Kilpatrick, Board President of the Greater San Diego Association of REALTORS®, says The Climate Action Plan is well-intentioned, and includes several common sense policies that would help the environment. Its goal of strengthening the economy and San Diego’s communities may not be realized if these mandates are enforced. These mandates are directed at the point of sale.

“These point of sale mandates are very expensive they involve insulation, new windows in many cases, heating and air conditioning, a lot of upgrades, and it’s very expensive to ask someone who needs to sell their home,” says Kilpatrick.

Realtors are the ones who sit across from the kitchen table with the homeowner who needs to sell; and there are variety of reasons for having to sell a property.

Kilpatrick says to put a burden on the seller at that point in time is unfair.

“Usually, people are selling their homes out of life transitions. They are retiring and this is their whole nest egg; they have to move to another area because of a job transfer or a job loss, life reasons: divorce, death, illness in families, these are the reasons people sell their homes,” said Kilpatrick.

These same mandates are directed towards small businesses as well. In recent years many small businesses, and homes had no equity when they were sold. Requiring these new regulations could suppress the real estate market.

“We’re in a fragile state of recovery and we feel it would repress the market to require sellers to spend money to be able to sell, some say let’s just pass it on to the buyers,” explains Kilpatrick. 

But you can’t do that because the upgrades are prior to sales.

“We want people to buy homes, young people especially. And it makes it very difficult for them to do so if we keep tacking on costs to that, and the same city is speaking to us to make housing more affordable,” she says. 

The real estate transactions also create employment. “For every two home sales one job is created. We feel that home selling and their natural progression will add to the economy, rather than creating another bureaucracy to monitor people’s homes so they can sell them,” says Kilpatrick.

The real estate industry was not at the table when this climate action plan was put together.

“We’ve reached out to mayor Faulconer, we would like to have a seat at the table as stake holders in San Diego and it’s the people who actually sit in the homes with the homeowners and have some say in what will happen next,” said Kilpatrick. 

There are thousands of older homes in San Diego that do not have the upgrades this plan mandates which means those homeowners would not be able to sell their homes despite the need to sell.