I also live in southern California.
Regarding rental properties. We own some and manage other rental properties. We have stopped buying any more rental properties for the last few years, because even with how high rents are, you can make more money buying a CD from a bank with less risk and hassle than owning rental property.
A quick example, a $500K 3 bedroom/2 bath condo rents for around $2700/month. That is $32,400/yr. Sounds like a lot of money and it is. But that same condo would cost $5,000 in property taxes, around $1500 in insurance, $7,000 in HOA fees (HOA fees have skyrocketed in recent years) and around $7500 in maintenance a year. That leaves a profit of $11,400/year. The same $500,000 invested in a CD in the bank earns $25,000/year, more than twice as much and no need to worry about what new law will be passed to impact housing.
This year, we are only raising the rent $45/mo. I am wrestling with selling our properties, because I see no benefit owning them, but where would our tenants go? The $45 is simply a passthrough of this year's increase in condo fees and insurance. I am not crying the blues; I can afford to earn less (even though our rental properties are where I put my retirement savings) and so the profits are my retirement income.
But I don't expect the problem of affordable housing is going to be solved in the near future... especially given the state's current deficit of $30 billion. People who say the answer is "government investment" need to figure out where the government is getting the money to invest. California and the US government are running huge deficits. If the US government prints money, we get massive inflations, California's government can't print money. The answer has come from somewhere else.
Let's start with the basics. The three things that make southern California more expensive than other parts of the nation are housing costs, taxes, and energy costs (and energy costs are largely a function of taxes). These things drive up labor costs, but you can only increase wage rates so much before you are so out of line with the rest of the country, our state economy will collapse... companies are already fleeing, we don't want to make it a stampede. So, we need to cut the state's spending and taxes, if we are going to get the cost of living under control. Other states do quite well with lower taxes... San Francisco is dying as its tax rates go up and its tax revenues go down as people leave. Our state got addicted to the higher tax revenues that soaring housing prices brought in, since every time a house traded hands, the new tax base was much higher than the previous one.
https://news.bloombergtax.com/daily-tax-report-state/san-francisco-feels-a-tax-base-chill-with-first-drop-in-25-years
It is time for new governance in California. I made a living turning around companies that were unsound. California needs to get serious and make the state the "golden state" again. That starts with driving down energy costs and taxes, which are largely a function of the state's policies.
Meanwhile, for housing costs to come down, the local communities will have to drastically change their zoning laws to allow more multifamily homes in traditionally single-family home zones. If you want affordable housing, you need more housing. You simply cannot build affordable housing in this state unless you can get access to building more multi-family family housing in areas previously reserved for single family homes. It really is not that complicated.
The theft problems in our state are not typical in the rest of the country. We need to see crime as crime and not social justice, or it won't get better.
California is in seriously bad shape and our current governor and state legislature are responsible. Newsom is a disaster. We are going to need a governor that knows how to turn a state around and attract business to the state and drive down the cost of living in this state.
Sadly, some people just will not be able to live in "coastal" California, it simply costs too much and until we solve our housing problem, I don't expect things will get better. Personally, I think we need to start by building affordable housing for people working full time. For people who are retired or not able to work, unless we can create housing out of thin air, it is time to build affordable housing in the less densely populated parts of the state. I have a friend that just retired and moved to rural California, and it made a huge difference in his standard of living. He has a nice home in the high desert area.
The is a bit off topic, but we can't make excuses for crime. If we do, then our cities will die, and government investment is not an option given the deficits.
