UCI

Real Estate Market

While stock market values have fallen, and Orange County median home values have climbed in the past year, a large majority of county residents see the purchase of a home in Orange County as an excellent or good investment.

Among homeowners, 82 percent think that buying a home in the county is an excellent or good investment; 11 percent say it would be a fair investment; and only 6 percent think it would be a poor investment. This positive assessment by homeowners is unchanged from a year ago, and the scores in the past few years are significantly higher than in the early-to-mid 1990s.

Among renters, 73 percent now believe that buying a home in the county is an excellent or good investment (up 3 points since last year); 15 percent consider it a fair investment; and 11 percent think it would be a poor investment. Over the past two years, renters have become much more bullish on the value of buying a home in Orange County than they were throughout the period from 1993 to 2000. In fact, renters now more closely resemble homeowners in their views on the value of owning a home (73% to 82%). Previously, renters were much less likely than homeowners to say that buying an Orange County home would be an excellent or good investment.

As for regional differences, homeowners in the South County (86%) are more likely than homeowners in the North County (80%) to say that owning a home is an excellent or good investment. Renters in both regions are nearly equally likely to say that owning a home in Orange County would be an excellent or good investment (North, 73%; South, 74%).

Interestingly, Latinos (81%) are as likely as whites (79%) to rate buying a home in Orange County as an excellent or a good investment. This is despite the fact that whites are almost twice as likely as Latinos to own a home (70% to 37%) and that homeownership itself generally fosters a somewhat more upbeat assessment of the value of buying a home in Orange County.