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☆ Comerica Bank's chief economist breaks down why home prices will continue their slide through most of 2023 — and shares why California's biggest markets will see some of the country's largest price de
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( William Edwards | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Housing prices around the US will see declines in the high single-digits, says Bill Adams. Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area in California face unique challenges, he said. That downward trend will continue into the fourth quarter this year, Adams said, and peak-to-trough prices declines will end up being in the high single-digits. According to Kiplinger, Los Angeles, Orange County, San Francisco, and Oakland are all in the top 11 most expensive cities in the US. According to S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller data, home prices in Los Angeles are down 7.5% from their peak, and prices in San Francisco are down 14.2%.

☆ Tesla to base engineering headquarters in California
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Companies Tesla Inc FollowHP Inc FollowFeb 22 (Reuters) - Electric-vehicle maker Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) will make its global engineering headquarters in California, Chief Executive Elon Musk and California Governor Gavin Newsom announced on Wednesday. Tesla in December 2021 moved its corporate headquarters from Silicon Valley’s Palo Alto, California, to Austin, Texas, where it is operating a new car factory. Billionaire Musk himself moved from Los Angeles to the Lone Star State, which does not have state income tax. California remains a key source of talent for tech companies, and the Tesla engineering headquarters will be in a former Hewlett Packard building in Palo Alto. "This is a poetic transition from the company that founded Silicon Valley to Tesla," Musk said.

☆ Google asks some employees to share desks amid office downsizing
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Jennifer Elias | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Google is asking cloud employees and partners to share their desks and alternate days with their desk mates starting next quarter, citing "real estate efficiency," CNBC has learned. Google also used its internal data it has on it its employee office return patterns to inform the decision, the FAQ stated. In addition to slower office return patterns, the company has slowed hiring and laid off 11,000 employees in January. A Google spokesperson explained, "Since returning to the office, we've run pilots and conducted surveys with Cloud employees to explore different hybrid work models and help shape the best experience. In the fourth quarter, Google Cloud brought in $7.32 billion, growing 32% from the prior year, considerably faster than the company's overall growth rate of less than 10%.

☆ California water officials raise State Water Project allocation after storms
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Emma Newburger | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

The reservoir, part of the State Water Project, is currently at 35 percent capacity, below the historic average of 43 percent. As California prepared for a powerful winter storm system on Wednesday, state water officials announced that they are increasing supplies for water agencies serving about 27 million people and 750,000 acres of farmland. The Department of Water Resources (DWR) said in a news release that the modest increase in forecast State Water Project deliveries this year comes because of early gains in the Sierra Nevada snowpack, which translated to an additional 210,000 acre-feet of water. DWR now expects to deliver 35% of requested water supplies, up from 30% forecasted in January. The State Water Project collects water from rivers in Northern California and delivers it to 29 public water suppliers.

☆ Investors and techies gather in San Francisco to bathe in generative A.I. hype sparked by ChatGPT
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Jonathan Vanian | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

They were there to discuss the latest craze capturing the attention of the tech world: generative artificial intelligence. The underlying AI software powering ChatGPT, a kind of machine-learning technology known as a "large language model," isn't new. As Bessemer Venture Partners' Sameer Dholakia told audience members, generative AI could change "the lives of billions of people." Blackwell credits OpenAI and ChatGPT with showing people what's possible with generative AI, shining a spotlight on the industry at large. But for one day in San Francisco, generative AI was more than just a tool.

☆ Dropbox hit with $175 million real estate loss for 2022 as San Francisco office space sits empty
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Jordan Novet | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Its total real estate impairment for the year was $175.2 million, which is still well below the $400 million hit the company took in late 2020. That reduced the company's need for office space and pushed it to find tenants to sublease significant chunks of its headquarters. "And there's certainly been an increase in supply for real estate for sublease, which has pushed out our anticipated time to lease." Salesforce , Airbnb , Uber and Zendesk are among other companies that have taken real estate impairments in the city. Dropbox executives had expected to sublease the company's San Francisco property in the middle of 2023.

☆ Homebuyers have a better shot at scoring a deal on a house in the 14 cities where home prices have plummeted the most
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Aj Latrace | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

According to Black Knight, 14 of the 50 largest US markets have seen home prices fall by 6% or more. The San Francisco Bay Area leads the nation with the largest drop in home prices. Softening home prices in some of the most expensive cities will benefit buyers. But there's a chance for them to come off the sidelines — in fact, some already have — as prices fall in some key areas. Leading the nation with the largest drop from the 2022 peak is San Francisco, where home prices have fallen nearly 17%.

☆ Commercial real estate's biggest investors are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the grittiest land in America. Here's why.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Daniel Geiger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

Big commercial-real-estate players from Brookfield to Fortress are snapping up industrial land. Brookfield is one of several big-name investors that are paying increasing attention to lowly industrial land. Industrial land also generally has lower operating costs and taxes compared to other real estate. It's hard to find big enough portfolios of industrial landThere are challenges, too, in breaking into the business of owning industrial land. Atkins said he has been impressed by the robustness of the IOS market, even with fears about the broader economy.

☆ In San Francisco, a Home Theater That Also Makes Guests Feel at Home
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Rima Suqi | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Enter Kendall Wilkinson, a San Francisco-based interior designer who had worked with this client for almost two decades on both this 7,500-square-foot Pacific Heights home and another in Honolulu, Hawaii. “This was originally a chopped-up space with a bedroom, kitchen and closet,” Ms. Wilkinson says. With a wall of windows, there is plenty of natural light to flood the approximately 1,000-square-foot space when not in use as a cinema, providing views of the garden and the San Francisco Bay beyond. When it is in use, the Roman shades and draperies are drawn and lighting dimmed to create a home-theater experience. In the end, says Ms. Wilkinson, “there’s a lot going on in a very small space.”

☆ A 23-year-old teacher got $25,000 to buy a house so she could live and work in the same city as her students
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Alcynna Lloyd | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The school district is now offering grants to qualifying staffers to lower its turnover rate. The school district is trying to change that by awarding grants to teachers so they can afford homes in the community where they teach. Lillian Snoeyink, 23, is the first grant recipient, receiving a check in January from the Holland Public Schools. Holland Public Schools launched the grant program in January after struggling to attract and retain educators. Holland Public Schools is not the only school district taking drastic measures to help employees afford housing.

☆ Test proves that CO2 sucked from the air can be trapped in concrete
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

To do that, two things are needed: first, capturing carbon dioxide with nature or technology, and second, locking it up for centuries. The rock is then heated to release the collected ambient carbon dioxide, and the cycle repeats. Canada's CarbonCure, the concrete technology company, mixes CO2 with concrete ingredients, turning it into a mineral that strengthens the concrete, cutting the need for cement — the part of concrete with the biggest carbon footprint. The U.S. government and industry broadly see $100-a-tonne carbon dioxide as a reasonable price for broad deployment. However, concrete's ubiquity is attractive, because there are few places to securely hold carbon dioxide at present.

☆ Roadkill rate for California cougars puts population at risk
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( Steve Gorman | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] National Park Service photo of the Griffith Park mountain lion known as P-22 is shown in this remote camera image set up on a fresh deer kill in Griffith Park in this November 2014 photo. P-22, a radio-collared puma that became a wildlife celebrity, was one of the many mountain lions struck by a car in California. The data adds to research showing mountain lions, also known as cougars or pumas, are under growing pressure from traffic and urban sprawl that have left their territories increasingly isolated from one another, shrinking their gene pools. The study cataloged a total of 535 mountain lion deaths on some 15,000 miles (24,140 km)of state-managed highways over eight years, from 2015 through 2022. A public celebration of P-22 is planned for Saturday in Griffith Park.

☆ The ChatGPT and generative AI 'gold rush' has founders flocking to San Francisco's 'Cerebral Valley'
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Thomas Maxwell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Because of pandemic-era closings, San Francisco became somewhat of a ghost town for two years. Now, a race to succeed in the fledgling space of generative AI has founders flocking back. Generative AI takes training data — for instance, a vast corpus of written text — and teaches itself how to produce completely new, unique works. After giving New York a try for several weeks, the generative AI boom picked up. Thomas Maxwell/InsiderPerez said that the sense of urgency to get working on building better AI models comes from how generative AI improves with more data.

☆ $100 repair bill sparked Half Moon Bay shooting, prosecutor says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

SAN FRANCISCO — A farmworker charged with killing seven people at two Half Moon Bay mushroom farms reportedly told investigators he was spurred to carry out the shootings after his supervisor demanded he pay $100 to repair a forklift damaged at work. KNTV-TV, the NBC affiliate in the San Francisco Bay Area, was first to report the development. Zhao told KNTV-TV in a courthouse interview Thursday that he committed the shootings. He said he has a 40-year-old daughter in China and lived with his wife in Half Moon Bay. The coroner’s office has named six of the victims: Zhishen Liu, 73, of San Francisco; Marciano Martinez Jimenez, 50, of Moss Beach, California; Aixiang Zhang, 74, of San Francisco; Qizhong Cheng, 66, of Half Moon Bay; Jingzhi Lu, 64, of Half Moon Bay; and Yetao Bing, 43, whose hometown was unknown.

☆ Mercedes-Benz says it has achieved Level 3 automation, which requires less driver input, surpassing the self-driving capabilities of Tesla and other major US automakers
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Lloyd Lee | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Mercedes-Benz announced it will introduce its Level 3 autonomous driving system in Nevada. Unlike a Level 2 system, which requires constant supervision from the driver as the vehicle steers and accelerates, Level 3 automation gives drivers more leeway. When The Drive's test pilot put a camera in front of his face, Mercedes's autonomous driving system disengaged. Some critics have also accused the company of misleading its customers by calling the company's autonomous driving system "Full Self-Driving." Spokespersons for Mercedes-Benz, Tesla, and SAE did not respond to a request for comment.

☆ NWSL Set to Expand With Record-Setting $50 Million Franchise Fees
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-28 | by ( Jessica Toonkel | Rachel Bachman | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Portland Thorns FC pose with the trophy after winning the NWSL Championship in 2022. The National Women’s Soccer League is in advanced discussions to expand by three teams, according to people familiar with the situation, with two of those teams set to pay around $50 million each in franchise fees that dwarf previous payments required to enter the league. The new teams are set to launch in the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston and Utah. The Bay Area and Boston groups each have agreed to pay about $50 million for a team. Owners in Utah will pay between $2 million and $5 million, an arrangement agreed to a few years ago.

But add a candidate representing the Bernie Sanders wing of the party, Ro Khanna, and a living legend who got her start with the Black Panthers and would become the only Black woman in the Senate, Barbara Lee — now you're talking about a California Senate race for the ages. Reaching voters isn’t easy in California, with a population approaching 40 million and a land mass bigger than that of many countries. But the race will affect the future of the Democratic Party, both in California and beyond. “An appointment would be a way to make sure that this country has the essential voice of a Black woman,” Allison said. And I don’t see and I don’t understand why it isn’t happening.”Meanwhile, as Lee watches Feinstein, Bernieworld is watching Lee.

☆ Wetsuit Shaming in San Francisco Divides Bay Area Swimmers
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( Robert Mcmillan | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

SAN FRANCISCO—A year ago, Adele Gower used to cherish daily 90-minute swims in the frigid Bay here. Now she can only stand it for 30 minutes. She abandoned her wetsuit after being shamed by fellow San Francisco Bay swimmers—a peculiar, zealous breed, who jump off boats near Alcatraz Island and swim with seals in the city’s Aquatic Park.

☆ California Storms Leave Billions of Dollars in Damage to Businesses, Homes and Infrastructure
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-21 | by ( Jim Carlton | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

ANTIOCH, Calif.—Paradise Skate Roller Rink was preparing to host a New Year’s Eve bash when floodwaters poured in from a nearby creek, destroying the wooden floor and leaving the decades-old business in this San Francisco Bay Area suburb out of commission for months. “Mother Nature could have been a little nicer, but I think she has a head of her own,” general manager Bob Bruce said earlier this week, walking carefully on the warped floor as dozens of beach balls intended to drop at midnight Jan. 1 remained suspended in a ceiling net.

☆ AI bot that lets you chat with Jesus, Hitler is latest GPT-3 controversy
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +9 min

But this week, it sparked viral controversy online over its inclusion of Hitler, his Nazi lieutenants and other dictators from the past. Historical Figures, which also uses GPT-3, launched the first week of January, and as of Wednesday, it had about 9,000 signups, app creator Sidhant Chadda said in a phone interview. “People expect these historical figures to be truthful, but in reality, people are not always 100% honest,” he said. Asking a question costs one coin, and the app charges extra to get access to high-profile historical figures. The possibility of digitally re-animating historical figures has been gaining ground ever since, from the “The Simpsons” to holograms of dead idols such as Buddy Holly and Whitney Houston.

☆ Elon Musk is being sued over his ‘funding secured’ tweet. Here’s what you need to know
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-17 | by ( Chris Isidore | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

New York CNN —A four-year old tweet from Elon Musk has the Tesla CEO back in court starting Tuesday. Musk, Tesla and other Tesla directors are facing a shareholder lawsuit over his now-infamous 2018 tweet, which said that he was thinking about taking Tesla private at a price of $420 a share. If he had ended the tweet right there, there wouldn’t still be coverage of it, or a lawsuit that seeks unspecified damages. That record close of $409.97 works out to $6,150 a share, when adjusted for the two stock splits since that day. “These numbers make clear that an impartial juror cannot feasibly be impaneled from this juror pool.”This is only the latest court case involving Musk.

Many major companies are requiring employees to return to the office full or part time. Here's a list, in alphabetical order, of major companies requiring employees to return to offices. AppleIn August, senior leaders told workers they had to return to the office at least three days a week. Read more: Elon Musk tells Twitter employees to return to the office or their resignations will be accepted10. Read more: Uber CEO's internal memo mandates employees return to the office in April.

☆ A woman waiting while her family test-drove a Tesla got hit by a car driven by an employee, lawsuit says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-14 | by ( Sam Tabahriti | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A woman sued Tesla for $2 million after she was struck by a car driven by a worker at a dealership. Rakshinda Parvez was waiting while her family test-drove a Tesla, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit claimed she suffered multiple injuries, but Tesla disputed her account of the incident. She walked behind a Tesla driven by an employee that had stopped at the parking lot exit, an amended complaint filed in November stated. The car then reversed "suddenly and without warning," resulting in concussion as well as neurological, disc, and other orthopedic injuries to Parvez, the lawsuit alleged.

Water-logged Californians will have to endure several more days of rain, as new storms line up in the Pacific to pound the state with unprecedented precipitation, forecasters said Thursday. The Bay Area and Central Coast have been particularly hard hit, with rain falling on San Francisco for 15 out of 18 days from Christmas through Wednesday. Oakland International Airport, a focal point of the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area region, has received almost a year's worth of rain in just the past 3 1/2 months. From Oct. 1 through Wednesday, that neighborhood of East Oakland received 17.85 inches of rain when a normal year accounts for 18.7 inches of rainfall. San Luis Obispo Sheriff's Office via TwitterA brief respite from rain in the Central Coast is allowing rescuers in San Luis Obispo County to continue their search Thursday for 5-year-old Kyle Doan, who was swept away by floodwaters on Monday.

☆ Death Toll From California Storms Rises to 16, Governor Says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-11 | by ( Alicia A. Caldwell | Alyssa Lukpat | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Evacuation orders for thousands of people across California were lifted on Tuesday following the latest in a series of storms that has killed 16 people in the rain-soaked state. The storm moved toward Southern California this week after beginning on Sunday night around the San Francisco Bay Area, forecasters said. The northern part of the state has experienced the brunt of the four earlier storms, which have caused widespread power outages and floods since Christmas.

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