Housing strategy #1: the far, far suburbs - Special Report: The Endangered Western Home

Sunset, May, 1993 by Peter Fish, Daniel Gregory

In California, the biggest single trend in housing has been the rush of first-time buyers away from the coastal cities to expanding towns inland. Why? "The continued lure of homeownership is pulling many middle-income Americans to lower-cost living areas," notes housing sociologist Nina Gruen. "People are moving farther and farther out."

In search of affordable new housing, Bay Area buyers are scouring former farmland in Solano, Stanislaus, and San Joaquin counties. In Southern California, the San Bernardino and San Gabriel mountains have gone from being the northern boundary of greater Los Angeles to being the gateway to desert cities like Victorville and Palmdale-Lancaster.

Price is the prime lure. In Palmdale, home shoppers find new three-bedrooms for much less than they'd be "down under"--Palmdale-speak for the San Fernando Valley, where many area residents work. Pat and Rick Curnow spent 10 years chasing a down payment in their native Ventura before buying an attractive 1,700-square-foot hillside home in Palmdale for $133,000. They love it: "This is the house we thought we'd get two or three houses down the line."

But there are considerable trade-offs. Rick has the hellacious commute (90 minutes one way) typical of Palmdale breadwinners. And while the Curnows say their town offers more diversions than it did a few years ago, good restaurants and even good shopping often lie "down under." More troubling is the dearth of decent jobs for the spouse who elects not to commute. Warns Pat, "People move out here, they don't realize how tight things are going to be. Everybody from grandma to local teenagers is competing for the same $5-an-hour job."

According to William Fulton of the California Planning and Development Report, the lack of jobs and services in these new communities won't be redressed anytime soon. "A lot of people move to the middle of nowhere expecting civilization to catch up. That might have been true in the 1980s. But the 1990s are going to be so slow it's going to take a long time for that to happen."

Tracy, 68 miles east of San Francisco, is a perfect example of the "eastward ho" phenomenon. Farm town turning bedroom community, Tracy grew from 18,428 people in 1980 to 35,760 in 1991. Cul-de-sacs have replaced ketchup as the local cash crop: Barry Hand, the city's community development director, estimates that 3,800 houses have been built in Tracy since 1988. And many of those new residents work elsewhere; approximately 40 percent of Tracy's work force commutes west over the Altamont Pass toward the San Francisco Bay Area.

Since last fall, two of those commuters have been Ramona Radach and Bert Surfield. Ramona, an emergency room nurse, and Bert, a maintenance supervisor for Bay Area Rapid Transit, both work in Hayward, 45 miles to the west.

Why did they move? "You get a lot more house for the money here," asserts Ramona. She sold her previous home, a 950-square-foot house overlooking the bay in San Leandro, for $150,000. They then bought a four-year-old, four-bedroom, three-bath, 2,245-square-foot house in the Arnaudo Village subdivision of Tracy for $175,000.

Tracy's Central Valley location offered advantages. "All our fun is out this way," says Ramona. "We do a lot of boating in the Delta |a half-hour away~ and skiing at Dodge Ridge |a 2-hour drive~. Tracy puts us that much closer."

Other deciding factors were a nearby park, a friendly neighborhood feel, and excellent day-care facilities. "Before buying the house," Ramona says, "we parked the car down the street and walked around the neighborhood. There were lots of people out walking with their children and dogs and mowing their lawns."

They have few regrets. With two active children under the age of 5, the need for extra space had become critical. "The commute is a tradeoff, and I miss the view and having a shopping mall nearby, but we just didn't have enough room to breathe," says Ramona. "The square footage we now have would have cost about $250,000 where I used to live."

Not every family who moves to the far suburbs finds happiness there. Just ask Charis and Stephen Ortega of Palmdale, California.

In February 1989, the Ortegas put 10 percent down on a $139,000 three-bedroom home and moved in with their two (soon to be three) children. Stephen's commute was grueling--he had to hit the road at 3:45 every morning. But the Ortegas loved Palmdale's desert climate and the presence of so many fellow newcomers. "We're a whole valley in search of friends," says Charis.

Problems began, however, when Stephen's employer, hit by defense cutbacks, reduced his overtime. To make up the lost income, Charis searched for work near home--but found the Palmdale job market impossible. The Ortegas took out a second mortgage and began living off credit cards. "We were stranded," says Charis. "We went to bed thinking, Oh, where is the money going to come from?"

Finally, last summer, Stephen's company announced that it was shutting its California plant. The Ortegas made the painful decision to sell their house--only to discover that in recession-wracked Palmdale, buyers were nowhere to be found.