Republican Steve Hilton used CNN's California governor debate to announce a $50,000 cap on government fees and regulations for a new home, if he wins.
He says that would knock $150,000 off the price. His math starts with a survey he cited, which he says found the average new California home carries $200,000 in those costs. The excerpt does not name the survey.
The quickest way to reduce the cost of housing is for the government to stop making it more expensive.
That was Hilton's pitch on camera. He added two more pieces. He would stop forcing apartment buildings into suburban areas, which he says ends the battles between NIMBYs and YIMBYs. And he would build 10 new cities, with counties bidding to host them. He says that keeps young people from having to move to another state.
Democrat Xavier Becerra went a different way. Asked whether he would pledge to close the housing gap, he said, "We will close the housing gap." He repeated his goal to "at least double the rate of building of homes."
Becerra did not put a number on how far he can go. "It just depends," he said, and named three levers: how much red tape can be cut, how fast down-payment assistance can expand, and how fast the state can make sure Wall Street isn't outbidding a teacher or a firefighter for a home.
So one candidate brought a figure and the other brought a direction. You can decide which is easier to check.
Housing costs are hitting younger Californians hardest, and both men staked their campaigns on fixing it. Becerra closed with the promise he says he already kept as attorney general: "I will enforce the law that requires local governments to build."