Soaring Prices Put Homes Out of Reach

I would have laughed at the simple shallowness of the recent letters written in response to your articles about the home prices in Orange County had not the utter lack of sympathy for the non-homeowners not hit me on the very day I had decided to give up house-hunting along with a large portion of my dream: to live in Orange County near my family and friends.

I sat reading those letters while imagining these people ensconced in their respectable “abodes,” smugly defending the $60,000 to $100,000 appreciation of their homes within a year with such spurious logic as “children no longer have the will to save and sacrifice” to flat-out stating that those who do not own do not because they have not put in “education, sacrificing,” and they buy frivolous items such as Mercedes-Benzes and VCRs.

My husband and I are both professionals, have both had five years of a university education, go out to dinner once every two months, if we’re lucky, have stopped purchasing any frivolous items such as clothing, and sold an old 240-Z in exchange for a cheaper $800 automobile. All in all we managed to save $10,000 this year. Oh boy! With a little help from my parents we might be able to buy the condominium we had our eye on last year. Right? Wrong! Those same condominiums that sold for $120,000 a year ago are now selling for $185,000.

In the event that this little scenario has actually provoked some sympathy, please save it for those poor souls who have handed over thousands of dollars more than the condominiums are worth simply because they have succumbed to the myth of the Orange County Shangri-La. Even more tragically, they have succumbed to the mass hysteria deftly controlled by those in the real estate business, along with the building contractors, and abetted by the media, which have suddenly discovered a “housing shortage” where one did not exist just a few months ago.

I offer my condolences to those who are paying out half or more of their incomes to live in their two- or three-bedroom bungalows, commuting nearly an hour or more in bumper-to-bumper traffic and trying to convince themselves that it all must be worth it. Why? Because, certainly, the millions of other people who are clamoring to buy in Orange County, no matter what the cost, can’t be wrong! Can they?

VIVIANNA STANKUS

Santa Ana