Your next sofa is caught in a trade war

Zoning? Never heard of her.

The train is leaving the station, and so are all the zoning laws. Newsom just signed SB 79, a new law that basically tells cities: no more gatekeeping the area around your train stations. Developers can now build taller, denser housing near BART, Caltrain, and major bus stops, even if local restrictions say otherwise.

That means that cute two-story strip by your train station could be nine stories soon. The rule goes: up to nine floors right next to heavy rail, seven within a quarter mile, six within a half. For smaller transit lines, it scales down, but the idea is the same: if it connects people, it can go up. California finally decided to stop pretending you can fix a housing crisis with parking lots.

There’s a catch (or a promise, depending who you ask): 7-13% of units have to be affordable, and transit agencies can build housing on their own land too. Like apartment buildings over bus stations. Not glamorous, but potentially kind of genius?

Supporters are calling this a climate win and a housing sanity check: fewer cars, shorter commutes, and maybe, juuust maybe, more homes regular people can actually live in. But not everyone’s on board. Critics say it could speed up gentrification or stress local infrastructure. Because adding height doesn’t automatically add equity. It just adds… well, height.

Still, the law kicks in July 2026, giving cities less than a year to figure it out before the cranes roll in. Housing built on transit, not traffic — imagine that. Goodbye, two-hour commutes. Hellooo, sanity.

YIMBY 1, NIMBY 0

While we’re on the topic of housing experiments, San Jose just pulled off something kind of wild: you can now buy someone’s backyard. Like the tiny house behind their main house. Yes, that’s officially for sale!

All thanks to a new California law (AB 1033) that lets homeowners split off and sell their ADUs (accessory dwelling units) as condos. San Jose is the first city to make it happen, and the first sale just went through.

It’s basically a housing cheat code. Homeowners get to cash out a piece of their property, and buyers get a shot at ownership without needing $1.5++ million and a blood pact with Chase Bank. Developers like AlphaX RE Capital are already circling and promising to build “dozens more.”

Other cities (hi Berkeley, Santa Cruz, SF 👀) are watching closely. Because if this works, affordability won’t mean fleeing the state, it’ll just mean moving into someone else’s backyard.

Bad news for couch potatoes

America’s favorite furniture brands are getting whiplash, and not from all those reclining chairs.

Trump just dropped a new round of tariffs, and the fallout was immediate. A casual 50% on imported cabinets and vanities and 30% on upholstered furniture. Wayfair, Williams-Sonoma, and RH’s stocks went tumbling, as they do when half your catalog comes from overseas. Even Ikea, the global benchmark for affordable design, is now forced to bump prices. Meanwhile, La-Z-Boy and Ethan Allen saw an unexpected boost. Turns out, when your couches don’t need passports, “Made in America” hits a little different. Who would’ve thunk?

But obviously, you can’t just pop up a factory in Ohio overnight. Re-shoring sounds nice until you realize it takes years — money, machines, and, you know, actual people who want to build furniture again. Some brands are panic-moving production from China to Vietnam or Mexico, but that’s more band-aid than master plan.

In the short term, retailers might coast through the holidays with pre-tariff inventory. Long term, expect higher prices, slower shipping, and more out of stock tags in your online cart.

All of this to say that your next sofa might cost more and take forever to arrive. Guess we’re all sitting this one out. Literally!