he just had the money to do it and just wanted to secure the shithole?
I can't see anything showing he needed to do it, in fact the home had dropped 3 million in value since the year prior. Bizarre, out of touch rich guy move. Relevant text of the article is pretty short.
Around three-and-a-half years after he sold his Marin County home in a lucrative off-market deal for nearly $6 million and relocated to Sacramento, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has decided to make a return to the Bay Area. The San Francisco native plans to split his time between Sacramento and Marin County, where his four children are reportedly already enrolled in school.
Records show Newsom, whose gubernatorial term ends in 2027, and his documentary filmmaker wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom have paid billionaire Hyatt Hotels heir Daniel Pritzker $9.1 million—about $600,000 over asking—through a private LLC for a midcentury modern abode in the affluent unincorporated community of Kentfield, about 20 miles north of San Francisco. First listed in summer 2023 for just under $11.5 million, the place underwent several price chops before landing at its final ask of $8.5 million.
To add, he's got another property in Sacramento at 3.7 mil. No photos in the article and haven't checked elsewhere, so by the details it's within Fair oaks, so somewhere within here.

Over 10 million just in homes alone.
Edit: Extra deetz on his current main home, aka the 9.1 mil. Since I can't get the Zillow to actually archive.

Only photo available there, I'd imagine anything more comprehensive was wiped or was never available outside of a luxury home seller's page.

6 beds, 6 baths, 5609 square feet. Sold for 10 mil in 2022, and when housing prices flew up it was on sale again, initially valued at 12 million, article's claim it was first resold at 11.5, relisted for 9.5 as it's value fell, and then for some reason was bought by Newsom for 9.1 when it'd already dipped 600k below that value.



Zillow lists it in the last image as still being valued what it was bought for, but again that's not exactly accurate, just estimates. Articles stated it was worth 8.5 by then, and clearly not a ton of people were interested in it if it's value was falling by millions.