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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2016
New college president had to move fast for new home
Low inventory
hinders search
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Two months after starting as
president of Clatsop Community
College, Christopher Breitmeyer
was still living in a house owned by
his employer as he tried to close on
a home of his own.
Living as a bachelor while his
wife and daughter spend another
year in St. Charles, Missouri, Bre-
itmeyer rented the Josie Peper
Building, still available after the
City Council rejected the college’s
request for a zoning change to make
the building a second home and
vacation rental.
“There weren’t a lot of rentals,
particularly if you have pets, which
I do,” said Breitmeyer, who brought
along his rescue dog, Maize. “Josie
Peper provided me stability.”
Once in Astoria, Breitmeyer
enlisted Kathy Whitsett, a Realtor
with Pacific Pro Realty, to help him
find a house.
“Anytime I found a house that
… I thought was reasonably priced,
you needed to act really quickly,”
Breitmeyer said. “If it was a nice,
reasonably priced house, it didn’t
last too long.”
After about a month of search-
ing, Breitmeyer found a house in
Astoria. But a t a recent meeting
on affordable housing, Breitmeyer
said his eyes were opened to the
North Coast’s housing crunch and
the effect it can have on lower-in-
come individuals, many of them his
potential students.
“I would hope at some point we
as a county can come together and
realize that we need to look at this
issue as a serious issue,” Breitmeyer
said. “A lot of the folks doing the
good work here can’t afford to live
here.”
The college helps provide
resources to students, he said, and in
an ideal world would partner with a
private developer to create student
housing near campus. The college
previously did so. But the housing
was never delivered, and the col-
lege received a $1 million court set-
tlement, which has since been real-
located toward the ongoing Patriot
Hall Redevelopment.
“We can be an advocate for
the solutions that the city and
county support,” Breitmeyer said.
“I think it’s going to be important
to the future of the region to have
housing.”
Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian
While looking for a house, Clatsop Community College President
Christopher Breitmeyer was able to stay in the college-owned Josie
Peper building for two months. He found a home in Astoria.
Couple shares a
crowded space in
Olney with family
Pair shares with
relatives to cope
hawn and Mollee Leech, mar-
ried with an infant, got lucky
when they found a house to rent
in Olney despite the housing
crunch.
But, to make their situation
easier financially, they are liv-
ing with Mollee’s aunt, uncle and
cousin. The five adults share the
household expenses: $1,700 a
month in rent, plus about $500
or more in utilities, groceries and
other costs.
The Leeches and their fam-
ily decided that living together
made sense, especially in a region
where housing options are lim-
ited, the cost of living is rising
and people often pool resources.
“It’s expensive where we live,
and it’s rough some months,”
Mollee said, “but our family …
We all work together cohesively
so that everything gets paid,
we’re all taken care of.”
Earlier, the group had lived
together in a two-bedroom apart-
ment in Warrenton when Mollee
was pregnant. She and her hus-
band now have an 18-month-old
son, Owen.
“Warrenton’s good to live in,”
Shawn said. “Quiet neighbor-
hood. Good housing. Affordable
rent. If you can find a house, that
S
is, or an apartment.”
But the cramped quar-
ters became an issue, and they
decided to find a house.
“It was pretty much the only
thing that was available at the
time,” Shawn said. “It was perfect
timing when it opened up.”
Shawn, 37, and Mollee, 24,
have been married almost three
years and make decent money
at their jobs in Seaside — he at
WorldMark Resort, she at Flash-
back Malt Shoppe & Gifts — but
living in Clatsop County isn’t
cheap, especially as a parent.
“It’s very expensive to have
a child,” Shawn said. “Unless
you’re well off, it’s hard to pay
for a child.”
Though six people living in a
four-bedroom house isn’t ideal,
each tenant has greater peace of
mind, and the Leeches are work-
ing to save money.
“We are very grateful that our
family asked us to move in with
them,” Mollee said. “And so,
while it’s not ideal, it is a better
situation than we could be living
in.”
Though Shawn enjoys liv-
ing with his extended family,
he would rather be living with
Mollee and Owen in a place of
their own.
“I love my family,” he said,
“but I have my own family.”
— Erick Bengel
AP Photo/David Goldman
Townhomes stand under construction as a pedestrian walks along the BeltLine in Atlanta. First-time buy-
ers may be entering the U.S. home market in greater numbers than industry watchers had assumed.
More first-timers than expected
are now buying homes in US
By JOSH BOAK
AP Economics Writer
WASHINGTON — First-time
buyers may be entering the U.S. home
market in greater numbers than indus-
try watchers had assumed.
Nearly half of sales in the past
year went to people who were buying
their first home, according to a survey
released Tuesday by the real estate
firm Zillow. That’s a much higher pro-
portion of the market than some other
industry estimates had indicated.
Zillow’s survey results suggest that
this year’s growth in home sales has
come largely from a wave of couples
in their 30s, who are the most com-
mon first-time buyers. If that trend
were to hold, it could raise hopes that
today’s vast generation of 18-to-34-
year-old millennials will help support
the housing market as more of them
move into their 30s.
That’s among the findings in a
168-page report by Seattle-based Zil-
low. Its survey also found that home
ownership is increasingly the domain
of the college-educated. And it indi-
cated that older Americans who are
seeking to downsize are paying pre-
miums for smaller houses.
The findings
was 33. By contrast, surveys from the
National Association of Realtors have
indicated that first-timers account for
about 32 percent of all buyers.
The difference between the two
surveys may stem from their meth-
odologies. The NAR has used a
mail-based survey for its annual fig-
ures, while Zillow used an online sur-
vey that might have generated more
responses from younger buyers. The
Zillow findings might help to explain
why there is a shortage of listings on
the housing market. Unlike move-up
buyers, people buying their first home
don’t have a property to list for sale,
depriving the market of inventory.
Adam DeSanctis, an NAR
spokesman, noted that his organiza-
tion’s survey out later this month will
show a rising share of first-time buy-
ers, although it remains below the his-
torical average of 39 percent since the
organization began tracking this fig-
ure in 1982.
DeSanctis also noted that gov-
ernment figures show home owner-
ship among young adults is at its low-
est level in history, which is why his
organization is skeptical that nearly
half of sales go to first-time buyers.
• No college? Dwindling chance
of homeownership
It’s become harder to realize the
dream of home ownership without a
college degree. Sixty-two percent of
buyers have at least a four-year col-
lege degree. Census figures show that
just 33 percent of the U.S. adults grad-
uated from college. The gap between
the education levels of homebuy-
ers and the broader U.S. population
indicates that workers with only a
high school degree are becoming less
likely to own a home.
This is a major shift for the mid-
dle class. Just 12 percent of home-
owners in 1986 were college gradu-
ates, according to government figures.
The trend is driven in part by falling
incomes for people with only a high
school degree.
• Millennial home buyers are
increasingly Hispanic
Out of the 74 million U.S. house-
holds that own their homes, a sizable
majority • 77 percent • are white. But
these demographics are changing fast.
Only 66 percent of millennial home-
owners are white. The big gains have
come from Latinos, who make up 17
percent of millennial homeowners but
just 9 percent of all homeowners.
Asians also make up a greater
share of millennials. This means that
as today’s millennial generation ages,
the housing market may look consid-
erably more diverse than it does now.
• Older Americans aren’t just
downsizing; they’re also upgrading.
The so-called “silent generation” •
those ages 65 to 75• bought homes in
the past year with a median size of just
1,800 square feet, about 220 square
feet smaller than the homes they sold.
But that smaller new home still cost
more. These retirement-age buyers
paid a median of $250,000, nearly
$30,000 more than the home they
sold. In some cases, the higher pur-
chase price likely reflects the profits
from the sale of their previous home,
in other cases a desire by upscale buy-
ers for luxury finishes and amenities.
Shawn and Mollee Leech pose for a portrait outside their rental
home in Olney. The Leeches had difficulty finding a rental that
accommodated their animals.
Here’s a breakdown of Zillow’s
findings:
• First-time buyers make up a
larger chunk of the housing market
than the real estate industry has gen-
erally thought. Forty-seven percent
of purchases in the past year went to
first-time buyers. Their median age
Baby on the way has couple
wishing for a bit more room
Emerald Heights: ‘It’s like the only place
in Astoria … that has everything all in one’
Lived in car,
tent at first
Continued from Page 1A
Danny Miller/The Daily Astorian
ay Fruits, manager at Book
Warehouse in Seaside, was
unprepared for the lack of housing
in Clatsop County when he moved
from Wyoming last October.
Fruits and his wife lived in
their car for two weeks and tent
for two months at a campground in
November and December.
“We made it,” he said.
The couple then went from
“motel to motel” before finally
finding a one-bedroom apartment
for $800 a month in Astoria. They
travel to Seaside for work every day.
“I’ve talked to many people that
have been going through that, too,”
Fruits said. “The housing is very
hard. I know some with pets — we
R
‘It’s hard over
here. But ... we
don’t want to
move.’
Ray Fruits
manager at Book Warehouse in
Seaside
have dogs — so that makes it even
harder.”
Although the apartment is an
improvement over their previous
living situations, the couple hopes
to find a larger home closer to their
jobs for when their child is born in
a few months.
“It’s hard over here,” he said.
“But we love it here and we don’t
want to move.”
— Lyra Fontaine
Several years ago, Morales, 27,
followed his mother from Salem
to work in Astoria’s canneries. For
five months, he said, he worked
15-hour days and slept in his truck
before getting into an apartment.
“I feel really bad for those peo-
ple who live outside, the homeless,”
he said. “It’s really bad.”
Jacobsen, 21, who grew up on
the North Coast and graduated a
couple of years ago from the Asto-
ria School District’s alternative
education program, has also dealt
with homelessness. She has lived
off and on at Emerald Heights for
much of her life, and said not much
as changed.
“It’s like the only place in Asto-
ria … that has everything all in
one,” she said.
‘I feel really bad for those
people who live outside, the
homeless. It’s really bad.’
Jesus Morales
he and his family reside in the Emerald Heights complex in Astoria
Clatsop County sold Emerald
Heights in 1992 to a private devel-
oper. The state had handed off the
site to the county’s housing author-
ity for low-income rental housing.
The sale included deed restric-
tions reserving 60 units for fami-
lies whose household income does
not exceed 50 percent of the median
area income, and another 180 units
were reserved for families at no
more than 80 percent of the average
area income. Rent for those units
was also required to include utili-
ties. But those restrictions are set to
expire in October 2017.
Whenever they look on the
market for a house to rent, Jacob-
sen said, available places either go
quickly or are too expensive for the
$700 to $800 a month she estimates
the couple can afford.
“We’ve kind of just stopped
looking for a while,” Jacobsen said,
noting there’s already a long wait-
ing list for the spots at Emerald
Heights.
— Edward Stratton