Slim pickings in home hunt

Doctor lowers expectations after months of fruitless searching

Dr. Earl Lynch says he can't stand it when real estate agents advise him to "just jump in" to the Santa Barbara market.

"Every one says that, but when you come from outside this area, it's really scary," said the former Pennsylvanian.

Yet he's beginning to think the real estate agents were right. Since he started looking for houses six months ago, the prices have done nothing but climb skyward.

On Friday, the median price for a house topped the $ million mark

The 45.-year-old physician has looked at nearly 200 Santa Barbara homes since he was hired here in January and still hasn't found anything he can afford for his family, which includes his wife, Colleen, three sons and his ailing mother.

During his search, the deputy director of Public Health has lived in a studio rental on the Mesa, without a kitchen, that costs $800 a month.

His family remains in Scranton, where they own a custom-built, six-bedroom, 4,800-square-foot house on a golf course, which is on the market for $625,000. It's been listed for three weeks, but there haven’t been any offers.

Nothing they can afford in Santa Barbara even comes close to the Lynches' Pennsylvania pad. When he first arrived, Dr. Lynch looked at houses in north Goleta in the $800,000 range that he rejected out of hand. Now he's wishing he could turn back the clock. They were gorgeous and spacious and cheap compared with what he's looking at now.

The Lynches have lowered their expectations and raised the limits of what they are willing to spend. They're now looking at homes in the $800,000 to $1.4 million range, with at least four bedrooms, in school districts with services for autistic children to serve their youngest son. Montecito Union offers the area's best program for autistic children, in Dr. Lynch's view, but the prices there are out of reach, despite his salary of more than $125,000.

On the Pennsylvania house, they have a 15-year fixed loan. To buy in Santa Barbara, they're going to "jump in" with an adjustable rate, interest-only loan "that essentially amounts to renting. It's just crazy," Dr. Lynch said.

The high prices have numbed him. Everything looks exorbitantly expensive and remarkably inadequate. And yet he knows he's lucky.

Dr. Lynch does all the hiring for the county government clinics that serve the poor, and many of the doctors and nurses he hires make significantly less and can't afford to buy at all. Some doctors he's tried to recruit have even rejected jobs in Santa Maria, viewing the prices there as too high.

"Although my situation is dire, we have a serious nursing shortage in Santa Barbara County, and with these kinds of housing prices, I empathize with the nurses a lot more," he said.

This weekend, Dr. Lynch's wife and his sister Karen Lynch from Klamath Falls, Ore., joined him in the house hunt. The pickings were slim in Goleta and Santa Barbara, with only six listings that fit the family's requirements.

They looked at a spacious, $2.3 million home in the hills above Goleta with views and plenty of room, but it was far more than they could afford. They ambled through a five-bedroom house in another Goleta neighborhood that was big but needed lots of work. It was $975,000.

Then they went back to a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home that Dr. Lynch made an offer on last week.

The house had nice landscaping, but some of the neighboring homes looked unkempt, with scruffy lawns of bare dirt and fried grass and cracked asphalt in the driveways. The 1960s rambler was bright and clean with new tile and carpets and some nice features, but it was dated. Dr. Lynch pointed out how the laundry room could be converted to another bedroom.

The price: $875,000.

Dr. Lynch tried to get the sellers to drop the price or throw in the washer and dryer. His offer was turned down.

"Can you believe it?" he asked.

As they walked through the house, none of the Lynch's seemed sorry that the offer was rejected.

"This is not the house for you," his sister said, seeming disturbed by the look of the neighborhood. "This would make someone a very nice house. But this is not you."

His wife walked through silently.

She has seen a few houses that seemed doable, she said, "but they all need a lot of work."

Dr. Lynch came to Santa Barbara because he is a public health doctor and administrator, and his home state has all but eliminated public health services because of budget shortages. He loves his job in Santa Barbara, and the whole family dreams of living here, in the sunshine, forever.

Dr. Lynch said he is a loyal man, but to get first dibs on a house, his working with five different real estate agents. On Sunday, it was RE/MAX agent Ann Zafiratos who took them around.

"You're buying the Santa Barbara lifestyle," she said, explaining the high prices.

And yet, atone point during his short tenure here, Dr. Lynch gave up on having that lifestyle. He missed his family, and the prices just seemed too crazy. He was looking at houses in which the family would have to convert the garage into bedrooms and park in the street.

He told his bosses at the county that he couldn't do it. They understood, and gave him time to look for another job.

And then a house came along that looked promising. He made an offer and lost it, but it renewed his hope.

"My son with autism loves the ocean, and my other two sons could attend college here," Dr. Lynch said. "I came from a place now where people are always saying "When I retire, I'm going to live near the beach," or move someplace they always wanted. And we just think it's crazy to wait until you retire to live your life the way you want to. We would never consider this if it weren't a place to be for life."