Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Diego are among the world’s least affordable cities for homebuyers, a recent report says.

When the price of a regular home is compared to regular local salaries, Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Diego and San José were among the five least affordable cities in the world, according to a survey from financial services provider Remitly conducted late last year.

Relative to local pay scales, the cities are more expensive for homebuyers than New York, Paris and Singapore, Remitly’s analysis says.

In Los Angeles, a single buyer earning the local average salary could afford a home worth only 28% of the average property in the region, according to the survey. Residents of San José can afford to buy a home worth only about a quarter of the average.

“This could mean they would have to stretch themselves financially, often finding larger down payments or asking for financial help from family to be able to make their dream of owning a home a reality,” the report said.

Two additional Bay Area cities appeared on the “20 least affordable” list. San Francisco came in at 10th place, while Oakland ranked 19th.

California homes are about twice as expensive as the typical midtier U.S. home, according to a recent report from the state Legislative Analyst’s Office. As of December, the average home price in California was $755,000, the report said.

Researchers looked at property prices, average salaries pre-tax, mortgage, interest rates and down payments and deposits to compare housing affordability across 151 cities in 11 countries.

Countries were chosen as they ranked in Remitly’s previous study of the most popular countries to move to. The study included the 50 U.S. cities with the highest populations. It excluded the United Arab Emirates and Japan because of insufficient data. The only Asian city the researchers included was Singapore.

Property prices were taken from national statistics agencies and real estate databases, the study said. Income figures were from national and regional datasets.

Detroit — where a person making the local average salary could afford more than two times the average property price — was named the world’s most affordable city to become a homeowner. It was the only U.S. city to make it onto the list, which otherwise consisted of German and Italian cities.

Michael Lens, professor of urban planning and public policy at UCLA, said the “writing has certainly been on the wall” for California’s housing market to be considered the most expensive in the world.

California’s draws include its “unparalleled amenities” and strong job market, Lens said. But “we make it very challenging to build enough homes to satiate the demand,” he said.

“That combination of low supply and relatively high affluence for some parts of our country make the baseline of an entry-level home very expensive,” Lens said.

Detroit’s ranking as the most affordable city in Remitly’s list reflects the city’s decades-long population loss, driven by white flight and a decline in the auto industry, Lens said. Vacancy rates are high because it was built to house a population that was once much larger.

Another major restaurant chain is shrinking in parts of the U.S.

Pizza Hut’s parent company Yum Brands plans to close 250 U.S. locations of its nationwide retail footprint, in the first half of 2026.

Yum Chief Financial Officer Ranjith Roy said on a Wednesday earnings call that the “targeted closures of underperforming units” are a part of what the company has dubbed its “Hut Forward” strategy — which also calls for more marketing support and an update of the chain’s technology and franchise agreements.

There are about 20,000 Pizza Hut locations worldwide, with roughly 6,400 in the U.S., according to the company’s November Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Yum didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The company has not yet said which stores it plans to close. Employees at five Pizza Hut locations across Los Angeles County said they did not know if their stores would be affected.

In November, Yum said in a statement it was launching a “review of strategic options” for the Pizza Hut brand and hinted that it was considering a sale.

“Pizza Hut’s performance indicates the need to take additional action to help the brand realize its full value, which may be better executed outside of Yum! Brands,” Chris Turner, the company’s chief executive, said in the statement. “To truly take advantage of the brand we’ve built and the opportunities ahead, we’ve made the decision to initiate a thorough review of strategic options.”

In addition to Pizza Hut, Yum Brands owns Kentucky Fried Chicken; Taco Bell, founded in 1962 in Downey; and Habit Burger & Grill, founded in 1969 in Santa Barbara.

As of November, the company franchised or operated more than 62,000 restaurants across more than 155 countries and territories, according to its SEC filing.

Yum shares have risen by more than 20% in the last year.

For its fourth quarter, which ended on Dec. 31, the company reported a net income of $535 million, up from $423 million the previous year.

The company’s financial results were buoyed by strong performances from Taco Bell and KFC, which saw same-store sales increase by 7% and 3% in the fourth quarter, respectively. In comparison, Pizza Hut’s performance lagged, with same-store sales falling 1%.

The first Pizza Hut opened in 1958 in Wichita, Kan. The restaurant rapidly added locations and was acquired by PepsiCo in 1977.

In 1997, PepsiCo spun off Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC into Tricon Global Restaurants Inc., according to the Washington Post. Tricon changed its name to Yum in 2002.

A California clean-air program, designed to rapidly electrify the state’s truck and bus fleets, has recently faced intense criticism for reserving its largest-ever tranche of funding to subsidize Tesla’s all-electric semi-truck, a largely unproven vehicle with a dubious production timeline.

In the past year, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and its nonprofit partner CALSTART have set aside nearly 1,000 vouchers, worth at least $165 million, to provide commercial fleets with steep markdowns on the long-delayed Tesla Semi, according to state data obtained by The Times. The battery-powered big rig has been advertised as a groundbreaking freight truck capable of traveling up to 500 miles on a single charge.

But the news of Tesla’s windfall outraged some in the trucking industry, who allege the state provided the world’s wealthiest automaker with preferential treatment for a vehicle that is not ready.

Nearly eight years since Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk unveiled the Tesla Semi as a concept, it still isn’t widely available in stock. It has repeatedly faced production delays and still doesn’t have a publicly advertised retail price.

In fact, some critics argue the Tesla Semi shouldn’t have qualified for government funding at all. At the time Tesla submitted its voucher requests, the vehicle didn’t appear to have the necessary certifications and approvals to be sold and legally driven on California roads.

Still, the 992 state-administered incentives have effectively established the Tesla Semi as the front-runner in the electrified heavy-duty truck class.

“I don’t think it would be an overstatement to say this is market distortion or market manipulation,” said Alexander Voets, general manager at RIZON Truck USA, a commercial electric truck brand. “CARB essentially single-handedly just made Tesla the market leader for electric vehicles for [heavy-duty trucks] without them having [virtually] any vehicles in customer hands.”

Historic funding, murky data

The funding was tentatively awarded through the Hybrid and Zero-Emission Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Project (HVIP), a state program aimed at reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions in the goods-movement sector and in public transit. Since its creation in 2009, the program has dedicated over $1.6 billion — a mix of state funding and incentives from local ports — toward helping fleets purchase electric, hydrogen and other low-emission vehicles.

The state program aims to solve an outsize problem: Heavy-duty trucks make up only 10% of vehicles on U.S. roads, but they produce 45% of smog-forming nitrogen oxides and 58% of lung-aggravating soot.

But experts say that the state program has lacked thorough oversight and accountability, allowing a small group of manufacturers to exploit the program’s robust endowments.

Since The Times began raising questions about Tesla’s vouchers, the state’s public data for the HVIP have drastically changed, reflecting lower funding amounts for Tesla and other major automakers. State officials had reserved the maximum amount for which the vehicle qualified — a number much higher than the retail price. In late January, officials revised the publicly accessible data so that the numbers no longer included local port funding that was awarded through the program — making it appear that Tesla received tens of millions less in funding.

CARB officials also noted that EV incentives from local utilities — not administered through the state voucher program — helped subsidize the Tesla Semi orders and ultimately lessen grant funding awarded by the state.

An analysis of earlier data by The Times showed that Tesla may have been poised to receive up to $202 million, roughly a third of all funding allocated during 2025 and 2026. The Tesla vouchers had each been worth from $120,000 to $430,000 but now are listed between $84,000 and $351,000.

Even after the revisions, Tesla is still poised to receive about $165 million, significantly more than any other single auto manufacturer. New Flyer, a Canadian bus manufacturer, secured the HVIP program’s second-highest funding, about $68 million, less than half that of Tesla.

Though its retail price has still not been publicly disclosed, state documents obtained by The Times show that the Tesla Semi generally sells for around $260,000 for the standard model with 300-mile range and $300,000 for the long-range model with 500-mile range.

The price has been one of the greatest selling points, as the average cost of a zero-emission big rig was $435,000 in 2024, according to CARB.

The state voucher program offers up to a 90% discount on the list price for private fleet operators.

Tesla’s questionable qualifications

To qualify for a voucher, manufacturers must obtain a zero-emission powertrain certification showing the vehicle meets certain performance standards. Each model year of the vehicle also needs to receive written approval from CARB, and the vehicle must be listed in the HVIP catalog.

The 2024 Tesla Semi was listed as an eligible vehicle by CARB, despite not having powertrain certification registered on CARB’s website. No subsequent model years were displayed as eligible before Tesla applied for government incentives.

“I still haven’t seen any proof that Tesla has been able to satisfy the requirements,” said a senior official at another EV manufacturer, who feared reprisal from state officials if they spoke out publicly.

“That is really concerning to me, because these are rules that I have to follow. So, how are they getting around this? And how has CARB not caught this?”

Tesla did not respond to multiple requests for comment. CARB officials did not directly answer how Tesla secured state funding.

“The process for vehicle or engine certification includes the review and processing of confidential business information, thus the certification status of any truck is confidential,” a spokesperson said in a statement to The Times.

However, CARB insisted that Tesla would not receive any state-administered funding until requirements are met and vehicles are delivered to customers.

A WattEv Transport Inc. Tesla Semi electric truck sits parked next to BYD electric trucks by a charging station at the Port of Long Beach in April.

(Patrick T Fallon / AFP via Getty Images)

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That provides little consolation to other manufacturers.

Even if Tesla fails to deliver the trucks and doesn’t eventually receive government incentives, it prevents other automakers — with EVs in stock — from utilizing the funding more immediately. Losing out on these funding opportunities could be critical for some smaller EV companies.

“That hurts the rest of us,” said Peter Tawil, director of sales and marking at RIZON and longtime promoter for the EV industry. “Our trucks can be delivered tomorrow.”

“If this doesn’t get corrected, our whole industry will just go down the toilet.”

A lifeline for EV makers

Tesla’s funding surge came two years after state officials quietly eliminated the limit of vouchers a single manufacturer can secure at one time, a key guardrail intended to prevent major automakers from hoarding California’s clean-transportation funding and stalling the deployment of electric vehicles.

Typically, auto dealerships secure purchase orders from private or public fleet operators interested in buying their zero-emission vehicles at the lower rates facilitated by the state incentives. Then, the dealerships submit voucher requests — for up to 20 vehicles at a time for most businesses — to obtain those incentives.

The state vouchers are awarded on a first-come, first-served basis, creating stiff competition for funding. During the funding cycle that began on Sept. 9, for example, there was about $335.6 million available. Within two days, 68% of that amount had already been allotted.

The program’s structure has enabled some companies to quickly capture a large portion of funding, over 1,000 vouchers in some cases, without having the inventory or production capacity to deliver those vehicles in a timely fashion. It also left their competitors unable to provide similar discounts.

For years, a single manufacturer generally was allowed to secure a maximum of only 100 state vouchers at a time, until it delivered those orders to customers. That rule was designed to prevent any entity from monopolizing state funds for vehicles that weren’t ready for production and to provide a level playing field for smaller manufacturers.

A CARB spokesperson acknowledged that the state program ended the 100-voucher limit because the policy unintentionally prevented customers from buying some of the most popular trucks and buses on the market. The state had also regularly granted waivers for customers to bypass the voucher limit for popular vehicle brands.

“The original intent of the manufacturer cap was to ensure [manufacturers] were not holding vouchers for an extended time,” a CARB spokesperson said. “Instead, it had the unintended consequence of limiting zero-emission vehicle choices for fleets.”

But, without those limits, large manufacturers, including Tesla, have been able to dominate the voucher program. The policy change has intensified competition in the state voucher program at a time when the EV market has entered its most uncertain period in recent memory.

The Trump administration has eliminated federal tax credits for EVs and invalidated California’s zero-emission vehicle targets. As a result, California is losing traction in its quest to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gases from the state’s robust shipping sector.

The medium- and heavy-duty segment, in particular, had already greatly consolidated as automakers have struggled to electrify — and monetize — delivery vans, buses and big rigs in the U.S.

California’s voucher program had provided electric truck and bus manufacturers with a lifeline. But Tesla’s expansion into the heavy-duty market has become a flash point, triggering calls for reforms to how incentives are distributed.

Paragon or prototype?

Ironically, Tesla CEO and former DOGE chief Elon Musk had publicly advocated against government incentives for EVs, boasting that eliminating these subsidies would bolster Tesla’s standing in the industry.

Meanwhile, Tesla has worked to secure millions in state and local funding for its Semi, while many in the trucking industry question whether the vehicle’s uneven development timeline justifies such heavy public investment.

In November 2017, Musk unveiled the Tesla Semi prototype at a SpaceX facility in Hawthorne. He touted it as a revolutionary all-electric truck that would help phase out diesel-powered models and reduce emissions from the nation’s shipping industry. Musk said it would deliver 500-mile range at maximum, a 0–60 mph acceleration in 20 seconds and 30-minute charging via solar-powered “Megachargers.”

Production was initially scheduled to begin in 2019 in Tesla’s Gigafactory in Nevada.

But, since then, early customers, such as food and beverage giant PepsiCo, have waited years for their orders to be fulfilled amid a series of manufacturing delays.

It’s unclear how many Tesla Semi models have been sold. According to state data, Tesla has received payment from CARB’s voucher program for only five Semi models thus far, all of which were delivered last July to Nevoya Transportation LLC.

State officials said they expect many of the Tesla orders will be fulfilled in late 2026, based on conversations they’ve had with Tesla representatives.

But there are still serious questions about its performance and design.

As the Tesla Semi was tested at the Port of Long Beach last year, a major design flaw became apparent. The big rig has a panoramic, wraparound windshield providing exceptional visibility and a futuristic appearance.

But it was clear that drivers were unable to roll down the window to present the necessary paperwork at the gated entry.

For skeptics, it was yet another sign the truck is still not ready for the road.