ALTURAS, Calif. — In California's most remote corner, the air is crisp, the sweeping plains and towering peaks inspire awe, and the median home price just crested $100,000 for the first time.
Yes, you read it right.
Modoc is California's only county where the median price of a home has stayed so low for so long. It is the least expensive nook in one of America's priciest states, a place where home buyers live out the pluses -- and many of the minuses -- of that elusive concept, "affordability."
Modoc County -- A Jan. 13 article in Section A said that the land that is now Modoc County did not become part of California until 1864. In fact, California's current boundaries were set by the state's first constitution in 1849 and included that land.
In Los Angeles County, $100,000 will just about cover the traditional 20% down payment for a median-priced house -- certainly not the whole building, yard and garage. In Orange County, it's about 80% of a down payment, and in Marin County, the most expensive housing market in the state, it's less than two-thirds of what's needed.
Compare that to the county seat of rural Modoc, where a snug blue house on downtown's Court Street -- complete with two bedrooms and a bath -- was recently listed at $84,000, and one unimpressed local real estate agent complained that it was overpriced.
But even in Modoc County, the self-proclaimed "last best place" -- closer to Boise than San Francisco, with more slogans (four) than people per square mile (two) -- the median home price is rising fast.
In 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau ranked the Modoc median price at $69,100. By the third quarter of 2005, the median -- the price at which half of all homes sell for more and half for less -- had jumped 40% to $96,500, according to DataQuick Information Systems, a research firm that tracks property transactions. Preliminary figures indicate that the median home price was about $116,000 for the last three months of the year.
Statewide, the median is estimated at $458,000 for the same period.
"We've had a red-hot market here too," said real estate broker Dean Neer, who describes the region his family moved to in 1873 as a "buckaroo county."
Affordability used to be a tangible concept that allowed the real estate industry to predict what buyers would do. That was back when mortgage companies required big down payments and wouldn't allow households to spend more than 35% of buyers' take-home pay to cover monthly housing costs. It was before low interest rates, soaring home prices and creative financing.
But these days -- and especially in this place -- affordability has become a slippery concept.
- Industry Report Says Housing Affordability Slips to 25% Aug 11, 2000
- 1990 Orange County. Challenge For the 1990s - Community leaders were asked what will be the biggest single challenge facing Orange County in the next decades and also their top five issues. Dec 26, 1989
- Battered Spirits of Modocs Lure 250 to Scene of Forgotten War Mar 31, 1988
