August 28, 2004 Affordable homes vanishing in county By MARIA ZATE
The Lompoc Valley may soon lose its reputation as Santa Barbara County's home for affordable housing. Lompoc's median home price in July crossed the $400,000 mark for the first time, setting a record for the valley and pacing county home prices that only seem to know one way to go. The median home price for an existing, single-family home in July was $407,000, up 43 percent compared with the $284,000 median of July 2003, according to the Lompoc Valley Association of Realtors. For the year to date, a longer-term view considered the best way to measure price trends, Lompoc Valley's median was $345,000, a 25 percent increase from $275,000 in the same period a year ago and the biggest gain in the county. The million-dollar median price tag for houses on the South Coast and the $750,000 median in the Santa Ynez Valley has led those seeking a more affordable alternative to Lompoc. That demand, however, threatens to strip the area of its affordable label. Median price marks the point where half the homes on the market sell for more and half sell for less. The median reflects the mix of all homes sold, not appreciation rates on individual properties. "I think the prices right now are a little high," said Debbie Johnson, who recently purchased a two-bedroom, one-bath condo in Vandenberg Village for the full asking price of $232,000. Ms. Johnson, who works at Vandenberg Air Force Base, had rented in Lompoc for the past 10 years. She feels fortunate to be a first-time homeowner, but she has had to wave goodbye to friends and co-workers who moved out of the area because of the rising price of homes, she said. "A lot of my co-workers who are married and are civil servants or in the military have had to move out of the state in order to buy something," Ms. Johnson said. "It seems that most of the people who are buying homes in Lompoc now are professional couples from Santa Barbara, with two full-time incomes and no kids." Gail Porr, another Lompoc resident who recently sold her condo, has also seen the trend in rising prices due to demand from those coming from the South Coast. Ms. Porr said she recently sold her two-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath condo for $255,000 to a "young couple from the Santa Barbara area." "They're teachers who were living in Summerland. They said they would rather commute from Lompoc than Ventura," she added. With the sale of her condo, which she bought a year ago for $80,000 less, Ms. Porr was able to purchase a single-family home in a planned urban development for $250,000. The two-bedroom, two-bath "fixer" on Third Street needed lots of work, but it had held one irresistible feature: a two-car garage. "The only reason I got it at $250,000 is because I actually signed the sales agreement six months ago," she said, explaining that the house was sold in a probate sale that delayed closing escrow. "It was a good deal for me because they had to sell it to me for the 6-month-old price, but I hadn't yet put my condo on the market," Ms. Porr said. "So during those six months, the value of my condo kept going up." Rising prices in Lompoc follow a trend across the county. From the South Coast to the North County, the median home price posted mostly double-digit gains in July as well as for the cumulative first seven months of the year. On the South Coast, the median in July was $1.045 million, a rise of 27 percent from July a year ago, while the year-to-date price was up nearly 20 percent to $1.029 million. The Santa Ynez Valley posted a median of $817,000 last month, only a 5 percent rise from July last year. For the seven months of the year, the valley's median reached $749,000, a 12 percent rise versus the same period a year ago. In Santa Maria, the median was up 19 percent for July to $369,950. For the year to date, the median hit $350,000, an increase of 21 percent. |
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