You want irony, Alanis? A Ventura County affordable housing advocate is packing his bags and moving to Connecticut because... he can't find an affordable house to buy in Ventura County.
Lyle Wray is leaving his job at the Ventura County Civic Alliance to take a similar job on the east coast, where, he told the Los Angeles Times, he has found plenty of beautiful homes under $300,000. He just can't afford a home in Ventura County with his $80,000 a year salary, he said.
Writes the paper:
If it's tough now, it's only going to get worse, economic experts say. Housing prices across Southern California last month surged to new highs, according to figures released by DataQuick Information Systems.
"If I can't afford to live here, what happens to police, teachers, firefighters?" Wray said. "I call it the Santa Barbara-Monaco syndrome. If this keeps up, only the rich and the people who cut their grass will be living here."
His own moment of truth came when he looked at a "mediocre" Thousand Oaks townhouse on the market for $340,000, Wray said.
"I just said, 'OK, that's it.' It was not in a terribly good neighborhood and there was an association fee on top of the mortgage," he said.
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