San Diego apartment complexes are now the emptiest they’ve been since 2000. At the end of June, the vacancy rate reached 6.2%, according to real estate tracker CoStar. But San Diego is still an extremely expensive place to live. Gov. Newsom signed new state legislation on Monday to close th at gap while also taking into account the major federal housing bill that just became law. The real issue isn’t vacant apartments — it’s affordability. Across San Diego County, there are roughly between 17,000 to 18,000 vacant apartment units. That sounds like plenty of supply but as housing experts point out, just because apartments are available, that doesn’t mean they’re affordable. Newsom says this new bill, AB 179, will help expand affordable housing, while Congress has also passed a law that may boost the housing supply nationwide. “It’s not complicated, supply and demand, econ 101. We need to build more damn housing,” Newsom said. AB 179 removes the red tape and streamlines more affordable housing projects, like getting rid of impact fees for developers. But CoStar housing expert Josh Ohl, says it actually it isn’t that simple. There are several factors leading to vacancies: the cost of inflation, the fact that rents have stayed pretty flat, even military deployments andyoung people in their 20s living with their parents much longer than previous generations. “I think it’s not only all of the supply that’s coming online that’s creating more vacant units, it’s just where these rents are coming in for these new units,” Ohl said. Last week, Congress passed a bipartisan housing bill, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, that aims to do a lot of the same — reduce barriers to building by adding incentives. It is a bipartisan effort Congressman Scott Peters and housing officials commended last week. “With this bill, we’ll be out of the way, we’ll not be adding a lot of additional costs, and we’ll be giving local governments more tools to do the right thing,” Peters said. Officials hope that both moves create the right kind of housing needed in California. About half of San Diego households are renters, according to the most recent census. The average median home price is $921,000. ...read more read less