Skyrocketing real estate prices and low-paying jobs have placed the American dream of home ownership out of reach for much of Broward County

Years of skyrocketing real estate prices and low-paying jobs have placed the American dream of home ownership out of reach for much of Broward County, the first-ever comprehensive study of the area's housing market concludes.The study commissioned by the Broward Housing Partnership warns that workers will leave, companies will have trouble filling jobs and new businesses won't come unless drastic action is taken soon. Released Wednesday, the report states that the price of new homes is so out of reach that attention must be focused on preserving older homes and developing more multifamily and rental properties.
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The coalition of businesses and community groups is setting up trust funds to underwrite the construction of affordable housing and help workers with mortgages and will ask companies and state and local governments to chip in. It also wants the county and cities to rewrite regulations to encourage developers to build housing that middle-income workers can afford.The effort comes too late for some, like Davie resident Laura Villazon. She, her husband and four children are moving to Tennessee this summer. They want a large home with a yard and couldn't find anything in Broward they could afford on his salary as a computer technician."We didn't want to go, but we couldn't find anything," Villazon said. "We want to put down roots in a place where our children can afford to buy a place, too, when they are old enough."The study was conducted over the past year by researchers at Florida International University's Metropolitan Center. They found that most households have been priced out of the market because of the unprecedented growth in real estate prices over the past three years.In other metropolitan areas, workers can move to neighborhoods less affected by rising prices. But that is not the case in Broward.Major gaps exist between what a single-family home costs and what most can afford to buy in all 25 Broward cities studied. That difference is $266,000 in Fort Lauderdale, $110,000 in Hollywood and $141,000 in Pembroke Pines.While condos remain a cheaper alternative, they, too, are out of reach for many households in 12 of those 25 cities. Those places include Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood and Pompano Beach.The problem exists not just for store clerks, waiters and secretaries, but for firefighters, teachers and police officers.Three-quarters of Broward households earn less than $77,000 a year, but would need to earn $91,000 to afford the current median price of $361,000 for a single-family home. The median sales price of a condo is $193,000, but roughly half the households don't earn the $50,000 a year needed to buy such a place.Because of the high prices, more and more families are spending more of their incomes than financial experts say they should on housing. No more than 30 percent of a family's income should go to pay a mortgage, insurance and taxes.The study said that lack of affordable housing has been exacerbated by the decline in new home construction, the loss of rental property and the trend among developers to focus on upscale multifamily projects. It also noted that Broward's economy continues to be heavily based on tourism, with new jobs occurring largely in low-paying service and retail occupations.Although the housing market has shown signs of cooling, the researchers warn that residents should not expect that to ease the crisis. They said prices should continue to increase, albeit at more moderate rates in light of the expected growth in population from 1.8 million people today to 2.1 million by 2015.