REAL ESTATE

Housing Bargains: In case all the news about low interest rates and falling home prices hasn’t driven home the point yet, the real estate gurus at Kenneth Leventhal & Co.’s Newport Beach office want us to know that “housing is more affordable in Orange County today than it has been since the mid-1970s.”

Depending on which data-reporting firm is doing the calculations, the median price of a home in the county these days runs from $204,000 to $225,000. It all depends on whether we’re talking about new houses, resale houses, single-family homes only, detached houses and condos, or any blend of all that.

At Kenneth Leventhal, the median of choice is $222,000. And almost half the households in the county can afford to buy a home at that price, according to the consulting firm’s Residential Data Trends, a monthly newsletter.

Homeownership costs in the county now take about 34% of the median household income of $53,000, the report states. That’s comparable to the 32% to 39% range of 1976-77 and the first time since 1977 that ownership costs have dropped below 40% of median income.

In 1982, those costs--mortgage payments, taxes and insurance--were exacerbated by high interest rates and steep home prices and made the cost of owning a home in Orange County eat up a staggering 62% of the median income.