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Climate Action Corner: Earth Day Action Guide


    How will you help Celebrate Earth Day Each and Every Day?! Your Climate Action Committee Earth Day Action Guide


    April 22 marks the 52nd Anniversary of the original Earth Day. The 2022 theme is Invest in Our Earth, and your Bridge Association Climate Action Committee urges you to take a pause and consider ways in which you as an individual, as a Realtor, and as a community member can help invest in Mother Earth! Your Climate Action Committee has agreed to participate in the Great Global Cleanup, a worldwide campaign to remove billions of pieces of trash from neighborhoods, beaches, rivers, lakes, trails, and parks — reducing waste and plastic pollution, improving habitats, and preventing harm to wildlife and humans. This program aims to continue clean ups every day of the year for a brighter, greener, and cleaner planet. Where will you fit into the story of beautifying our world?

    —Our Committee will be gathering on Saturday, April 16th at 9:30 to join a habitat restoration project in conjunction with the Audubon Society. We’ll be in a beautiful setting with views of the water at the MLK Shoreline. We would be delighted to have you join us! Contact Chair Arlene Baxter at eastbay.bungalows@gmail.com if you or your family members would like to signup to participate. —We suggest that you take advantage of a great offer from REI, in conjunction with the CA State Parks: sign up for a FREE Earth Day Clean Up Kit: Your FREE Earth Day kit will be available to pick up at your selected REI store starting April 1. Each kit will include gloves, a compostable trash bag, a coupon from our friends at REI, an exclusive Earth Day Climate Action sticker, and all the information you need to clean up litter in your local community. —Then mark your calendars for Wednesday April 27th at noon, when your Climate Action Committee will host the monthly Power Hour with a dynamic speaker who will give you and your clients a game plan for how to Get Off Your Gas! "How to Have It Fast and Easy, Retro Fabulous or Future Fit" by Sean Armstrong, Electrification Design Lead and Partner at Redwood Energy. This will be a free Zoom presentation, and Sean is a wonderful resource who has inspired and helped hundreds of homeowners make the switch from fossil fuels to clean, safe and sustainable electricity. Join us on the 27th to be inspired!

    There are many ways to Invest in Our Earth! Check out what you can do in your home town, or through local organizations, to make a difference.

    Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour

    Virtual events will be held on April 16 and 17, while in-person tours will be held on April 30 and May 1. Celebrate the 18th annual Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour online and in-person this year. In a series of live garden visits, passionate garden owners and talented designers of the Bay Area's beautiful landscapes will show us what's happening in their gardens, feature their favorite native plants, and discuss native plant gardening tools and resources. Learn more about the tour here.


    2022 East Bay Green Home Tour

    Saturday & Sunday, May 14 & 15, 2022, 10:00AM – 1:00PM

    How are East Bay residents adapting their homes to combat climate change, improve air quality, generate clean energy, and move towards a safer, greener future? The virtual East Bay Green Home Tour features short video tours of 12 local homes, followed by live Q&As with the homeowner or tenant. The tour will feature an all-new lineup of people, homes, and situations, plus helpful resources and ideas. Register and learn more at EastBayGreenHome.com.

    The tour is coordinated by Verdant Communications in partnership with the City of Berkeley’s Office of Energy & Sustainable Development and the Ecology Center. Last year we participated in the online version of this wonderful Green Home Tour, and produced a video busting myths about induction cooktops. You can view that here, featuring our Chair Arlene Baxter interviewing Chef Rachelle, an Induction Cooktop Pro!

    StopWaste Virtual Earth Day

    In celebration of Earth Month this year, StopWaste is partnering with cities and partners for a series of events throughout the month. Whether you're interested in a workshop about how to electrify your home, reduce wasted food, or build healthy soil, there's something here for everyone! Learn more at StopWaste.org!

    Energy Upgrade California

    Energy Upgrade California is a statewide initiative committed to helping Californians be more energy efficient, utilize more sustainable natural resources, reduce demand on the energy grid and make informed choices about their energy use at home and at work. All Californians can help protect the natural beauty of our state for future generations by taking small steps to use energy more wisely every day. Find out what you can do to help California #KeepItGolden at energyupgradeca.org!

    The Earth Day Network

    The Earth Day Network is a nonprofit organization with a mission to diversify, educate and activate the environmental movement worldwide. The Earth Day Network website offers a wide array of educational materials and activities for Earth Day 2022.

    Together we can indeed Invest in Our Earth! Please do what you can...the Earth is the only home we have!

    Dotloop now available as Member Benefit (Plus LTO offer thru March 31)

      Bridge Association of REALTORS® Forms Now Live in Dotloop Under Free Member Benefit Program

      Great news! You now have access to dotloop, a complete end-to-end translation management solution. You get up to 25 transactions (“loops”) as a member benefit. Plus, you’ll find all local and state association forms available natively in the platform. To take advantage of this new member benefit, sign up for your free dotloop account​ today and connect the Bridge Association of REALTORS® forms library, here's how...


      For a limited time — now through March 31, 2022 — receive 25% off the purchase of a dotloop Premium sub​scription.

      C.A.R. news release: Housing affordability by ethnicity

        For release:

        March 24, 2022

        Housing affordability for all Californians worsened amid skyrocketing home price growth during pandemic, C.A.R. reports


        Black and Latino households who can afford to buy are half that of whites, illustrating wide racial homeownership divide

        • About one-fourth of all Californians could afford to purchase the $786,750 statewide median-priced home in 2021, down a couple of percentage points from 2020.

        • By ethnic groups, more than one-third of white California households, and less than one in five Black and Latino California households could afford the same median-priced home, while 40 percent of Asians could buy a median-priced home.

        • A minimum annual income of $144,400 was needed to make monthly payments of $3,610, including principal, interest, and taxes on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at a 3.16 percent interest rate.

        LOS ANGELES (March 24) – Housing affordability deteriorated in 2021 for all California ethnic home-buying groups, largely due to double-digit home price growth that occurred during the COVID-19 crisis, the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (C.A.R.) https://www.car.org/ said today.

        Twenty-six percent of all Californians earned the minimum income needed to purchase a home in 2021, down from 28 percent in 2020. At the same time, housing affordability for white/non-Hispanic households fell from 38 percent in 2020 to 34 percent in 2021. Seventeen percent of Black and Latino households could afford the median-priced home in 2021, down from 19 percent and 20 percent in 2020, respectively. The significant difference in housing affordability for Black and Latino households illustrates the homeownership gap and wealth disparity for communities of color, which could worsen as rates rise further in 2022.

        Housing was more affordable for Asians, with 40 percent of Asian homebuyers who could afford the median-priced home in 2021, down from 43 percent in 2020, according to C.A.R.’s Housing Affordability Index.

        Multimedia:

        • Motiongraphic: https://www.car.org/marketdata/data/haitraditional/haiethnicity

        • Slides: https://car.sharefile.com/share/view/s2784b9e2115641c28fea6a434300ebdb

        Despite interest rates remaining low and many employees having the flexibility to work from home, gaps in housing affordability did not improve in 2021. The housing affordability gap between Blacks and the overall population in California remained virtually unchanged at 9.2 percentage points in 2020 and 9.3 percentage points in 2021, while the gap for Hispanics/Latinos widened slightly from 8.3 percentage points in 2020 to 8.9 percentage points in 2021.

        According to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, the 2020 homeownership rate for all Californians was 56 percent, 64 percent for whites, 61 percent for Asians, 46 percent for Hispanics/Latinos and 37 percent for Blacks.

        “Homeownership has an unparalleled ability to provide stability and economic security for working families and is vital to the health of our state and its citizens because it strengthens communities across California,” said C.A.R. President Otto Catrina. “Promoting access to homeownership is one way to close the racial wealth gap and foster economic equity for all Californians, and that’s why C.A.R. is committed to addressing ongoing fair housing and equity issues that persist in our state that have made it harder for Blacks, Latinos and other underserved communities to access and afford housing.”

        Last year, three C.A.R.-sponsored bills and two other fair housing bills, which C.A.R. actively supported, were signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom. These laws include requiring implicit bias training for real estate professionals, bills designed to address the supply and affordability challenges that disparately impact people of color and a bill to address appraisal bias.

        Additionally, in an effort to address California’s growing housing affordability crisis and racial homeownership divide, C.A.R. is partnering with nonprofit housing organizations to provide closing cost grants up to $10,000 for eligible first-time home buyers from an underserved community.

        C.A.R.’s Housing Affordability Index (HAI) measures the percentage of households that can afford to purchase a median-priced, single-family home in California. C.A.R. also reports affordability indices for regions and select counties within the state. The index is considered the most fundamental measure of housing well-being for home buyers in the state.

        A minimum annual income of $144,400 was needed to qualify for the purchase of a $786,750 statewide median-priced, existing single-family home in 2021. The monthly payment, including taxes and insurance on a 30-year, fixed-rate loan, would be $3,610, assuming a 20 percent down payment and an effective composite interest rate of 3.16 percent. The 2021 California median income for whites was $102,540, $116,060 for Asians, $71,120 for Hispanics/Latinos and $61,740 for Blacks — a more than $20,000 income gap between the overall population.

        The affordability gap is especially stark in expensive counties like San Francisco, where a median-priced home of $1,825,000 was only affordable for 10 percent of Black households, 17 percent of Latino households, 24 percent of Asian households and 37 percent of white households.

        Compared with California, 38 percent of the nation’s Black households could afford to purchase a $353,600 median-priced home in 2021, which required a minimum annual income of $64,800 to make monthly payments of $1,620, while 58 percent of white households could afford the same home.

        Key points from the 2021 Housing Affordability by Ethnicity report include:

        Leading the way…® in California real estate for more than 110 years, the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (www.car.org) is one of the largest state trade organizations in the United States with more than 217,000 members dedicated to the advancement of professionalism in real estate. C.A.R. is headquartered in Los Angeles



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