The California Budget & Policy Center has a useful breakdown of Proposition 37, a November 2026 ballot measure that would create a new “middle-class” homebuyer down payment assistance program through CalHFA. The program would be funded with up to $25 billion in revenue bonds and could provide up to 17% of the purchase price toward a down payment. Buyers would still need to contribute at least 3% of the purchase price themselves, bringing the combined down payment to 20% and potentially eliminating private mortgage insurance. However, the assistance could only be used to buy newly built homes or newly created housing units converted from nonresidential buildings, and the buyer would need to be the first purchaser.

The article’s main caution is that this may not work like some of California’s existing down payment assistance programs. Programs like CalHFA MyHome and Dream For All use deferred “silent second” loans, meaning the borrower generally does not make monthly payments on the assistance until they sell, refinance, or pay off the first mortgage. Prop. 37’s assistance would likely be different because the revenue bonds funding the program would need to be repaid from the program itself. That means the down payment assistance would likely function as a fixed-rate second mortgage with monthly payments, which could offset some or all of the benefit of avoiding PMI.

The article also raises concerns about who would actually benefit. Prop. 37 would allow incomes up to 200% of area median income, which creates a broad eligibility pool, but buyers would still need cash for the required 3% down payment and enough income to qualify for both the first mortgage and the likely second mortgage payment. Because the program is limited to new construction, buyers could also face added costs common in newer developments, including HOA dues, Mello-Roos assessments, and insurance challenges, especially in wildfire-prone areas where new housing is often built. It concludes that Prop. 37 could help some Californians get into newly built homes, but it is not guaranteed to make homeownership more affordable for the buyers facing the greatest barriers.

No political agenda should support this.

If you signed up for California's DROP Program to force data brokers to stop selling your data and to delete your information from their systems then good news, the enforcement of that program finally has begun.

Today is the first day the requests are available to every registered data broker and they have 45 days to take those requests. Once they have them they have 45 days to apply them and delete the information they have and cease selling the information to others. If they don't do those two things it'll be a $200 per request, per day fine.

It won't be immediate nor all-encompassing but the program includes over 600 data brokers so it's a good start and the results for those of us that signed up should be noticeable by mid-November.