Every month Zillow generates 366 million visits from roughly 227 million unique visitors. Redfin attracts roughly 54 million monthly. These are successful business models, consumer facing, built on the back of MLS data.
Assemblymember Tina McKinnor (D-Inglewood), the bill's author, framed it plainly: "A working stove and a working refrigerator are not luxuries—they are a necessary part of modern life." In an ever-evolving landscape of affordability issues, habitability, and human rights, California is finding it necessary to level the playing field. AB 628 doesn't represent a philosophical shift—it codifies what many jurisdictions already recognize: functional cooking and food storage are non-negotiable components of habitable housing, not amenities to be negotiated away or deferred.
Insurance coverage is such an issue that the California purchase agreement forms have an insurance contingency in place since June of 2024. Buyers walk into open houses thinking about quartz counters and school scores not hip to the fact that insurance is now another hurdle to homeownership.
