Fewest in O.C. on record can afford a single-family house
Only 10% earn $171,000 a year, enough to buy a $702,290 home, Realtors report.
By JEFF COLLINS
The Orange County Register
Only 10 percent of Orange County residents could afford to buy a house here at the median price or higher in December, the lowest level ever, new figures released Thursday show.
Buyers would have to earn more than $171,000 a year to afford a median-priced single-family home in Orange County at the end of 2005, according to the California Association of Realtors. Just 10 percent of local households earn that much.
That figure assumes that buyers used a 30-year fixedrate loan, made a 20 percent down payment and paid the $702,290 that the association determined to be the median single-family home price.
Early January figures from DataQuick Information Systems show the median price for an Orange County home, including condominiums, fell to $582,000, down from December's record median price of $621,000, because of a decrease in median new-home prices in that period.
DataQuick analyst John Karevoll has previously said such fluctuations in new-home prices likely are caused by home shoppers switching from houses to condos, which are less expensive.
Financing the purchase became more costly. Fixed-rate mortgages rose above 6 percent for the first time this year, and adjustable-rate mortgages, or ARMs, hit their highest level in three years, according to the National Financial News Services.
The region's average rate for a 30-year fixed loan with a one-point fee was 6.03 percent this week, the service reported.
A one-year ARM with a two-point fee was just under 4.2 percent.
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