In 1972, my parents bought their first house. My father, not long home from two tours in Vietnam, worked at the General Tire plant on the production floor at an entry-level job. He made $2.25 an hour, or $4,680 a year.
He had a wife, a 2-year-old son and a desire to put a roof over our heads. They paid $19,000 for that house, or roughly four times his annual salary. They did it on one income and without a college education.
Tai Sposato and Kristin Elliot of Dillon are a young couple just starting out. They work for the school district, Kristin as a preschool administrator and Tai as a campus supervisor at Summit High School. Kristin is the girls lacrosse coach at the high school. Tai is a middle school football and basketball coach in the fall and winter, and a high school baseball coach in the spring.
For two years, they’ve skied and hiked together, pretty much like any young couple “dating” in Summit County. And now they’d like to buy a home. They say they’re tired of paying rent, want to take on more responsibility, and start building equity together.
Their combined income is $64,000 a year. To be on a level playing field with my father, they would need to purchase a home for $256,000.
In that price range, they have limited options in Summit County. Housing prices have been plummeting in ski country lately and in Denver they are reported to have returned to 2001 levels. But as Tai and Kristin search for their first home, have values fallen far enough to make a home purchase practical or even desirable?
Many of their housing options are small, one-bedroom condos. Or they could purchase a home that is deed-restricted in some way. (A deed restriction records what you can and cannot do with your home, and includes limits to capital improvements and resale caps.) This is not a property you buy for a retirement investment.
The Summit Housing Authority helps people like Tai and Kristin “find ways and use tools to help make long-term livability affordable,” according to executive director Jennifer Kermode. The housing authority offers down payment assistance and sells some deed-restricted properties in Summit County. Many of these homes are in publicly subsidized housing developments like the Peak One neighborhood in Frisco and Valley Brook in Breckenridge.
In both of these developments, the town provided the land and put in the sewer and water, which are big parts of the development cost in order to keep the home prices down.
These homes are meant to house the local workforce, people working in and for the benefit of Summit County. They are not for people wanting to retire here to ski. In fact, many of these homes are sold to two people with four incomes.
Kermode also notes that there are 1,060 affordable units, but 320 of those are rentals.
One study by county officials indicated demand for nearly 4,500 affordable-housing units, a number that was expected to rise to more than 7,100 units by 2012. They then reduced that number to a more realistic goal of 2,500 units, but not necessarily because demand subsided.
People, usually wealthy second- home owners or successful business owners, are quick to point out that if you want affordable housing, then you should leave “special places” like Summit County and move somewhere “affordable” like rural Kansas.
But the people who need these houses are also serving them in fine restaurants, or are teaching their grandchildren to ski.
“I want them [second-home owners, opposed to more affordable units] to understand that these people are very valuable members of our community and that they make us economically strong. I am interested in a strong economy and economic growth here in Summit County,” Kermode said.
I’m not saying that everyone is entitled to purchase a new home. But for the long-term economic viability and livability of our communities, one of two things needs to happen. Either home prices need to fall to a level where people like Kristin and Tai can afford a home if they want one — which seems to be happening — or salaries need to rise to meet this new cost of homeownership. (Summit School District gave 2 percent raises this year, the first increase in three years.)
Equilibrium will be achieved when this income-to-home-price ratio (a most basic indicator) reflects at least as good an opportunity as my father had.
Jeff McAbee (jjmcabee@yahoo.com) of Breckenridge is a campus supervisor at Summit High School and writes for the Summit Daily News.
