By Kyle Odegard
Anne Baker has a great job as a budget and accounting analyst for Benton County, but when she wanted to buy a home, she started looking across the Willamette River.
"I can't afford Corvallis. The house prices here are just astronomical," the 44-year-old said.
Baker ended up buying a brand new 1,400-square-foot house east of Interstate 5 in Albany. The price tag was $183,000 for three bedrooms, two and a half baths and a small but nice enough yard.
In Corvallis, the same money would have bought a zero-lot line home, Baker said. "That's what I could have afforded if I could have found something," she added.
The average home sales price in Corvallis surpassed $300,000 for the first time this year. For June, it had climbed to $311,000, said Lee Eckroth, a real estate broker for Town & Country Realty.
High home prices, however, have led to concerns that Corvallis is becoming something of an unofficial gated community, an incredible place that's unaffordable for many working families.
The average home sales price for Albany was $214,000, and Eckroth said the Linn County city has some of the best values in the Willamette Valley.
With inexpensive housing and proximity to highways, Albany is a hub for commuters. More than a quarter of Linn County's 45,000 workers go to jobs someplace else, according to a 2003 state study.
"That's quite a few people who are on the road," said Will Summers, an Oregon Employment Department work force analyst.
That's also a lot of people who believe they have a higher quality of life with a little drive each day, he added.
Location, location, location
One of the main reasons for the difference in home prices is the scarcity of land in Corvallis, Eckroth said.
"Albany has had a lot more residential developable land than Corvallis had." That leads to lower land prices and more homes available, which keeps costs down.
The high price of land spurs developers to build bigger homes to get a better return on investment, said Kenneth Edwards, a real estate broker and author who teaches classes at Linn-Benton Community College.
The average size of a Benton County home sold in 2007 is 1,910 square feet. In Linn County, the average is 1,467 square feet.
Corvallis also is seen as more desirable because it lies off the Interstate 5 corridor, is close to the hills and has Oregon State University and a strong downtown. The community promotes itself as creative and sustainable.
"What are the three most important factors in determining the value of a home? The answer: location, location, location," Edwards said.
But that location is out of reach for many.
"One of the most discouraging things I encountered while teaching home buying classes at LBCC was to encounter a young couple, both with jobs, who could not find a home they could afford in Corvallis," Edwards said.
City Council member Mike Beilstein has lamented the housing market in Corvallis. "Are we losing families and school-aged children because it's too expensive to live here? We're getting to be like San Francisco or something, where nobody can afford to live here."
He also was concerned about commuting as a sustainability and economic issue, with gas prices at about $3 per gallon.
"I would like to find solutions for that, such as more mass transit," Beilstein said.
Summers said that's likely to happen in the mid-Willamette Valley. For now, though, plenty of people are spending quality time with their cars, he added.
On the road again
Nearly 6,000 people from Linn County travel to jobs in Benton County every workday, and thousands also commute to Marion and Lane counties, according to the state study, which is based on the 2000 Census.
Despite the study's age, the numbers today would be similar, Summers said.
OSU, Hewlett-Packard, CH2M Hill and Samaritan Health Services remain strong regional employers.
But plenty of Benton County workers also are leaving for jobs in other areas, including 4,600 who travel to Linn County. The Oregon Employment Department doesn't know exactly where they are going.
Many of those commuters to Linn County are likely a different type of worker, since statistics were compiled during the school year, Summers said.
In the Corvallis area, "you've got nearly 20,000 people who, a good number of them might be seeking part-time work," he added.
Once the pizza joints and other eateries fill their ranks in Corvallis, the next logical step for many OSU students is to look for work in Albany.
More medium- and high-wage blue-collar jobs are being created in Albany as large businesses decide to locate there, such as the Lowe's and Target distribution centers.
Plenty of professionals likely are leaving Benton County for work elsewhere, as well.
Charlie Bruce of Corvallis works for the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife and car-pools to Salem each day, which takes him 50 minutes.
The group talks about high school sports scores, elections and other news, but never listens to the radio.
"Some people didn't want to listen to country-Western music or NPR, so we said, 'OK, forget the radio,'" Bruce said.
Bruce worked for the agency out of Adair Village for about 20 years, but then he was transferred to Portland in a "temporary" move six years ago.
Three years ago, that position switched to Salem.
His family has stayed in Corvallis because of its livability.
"We just had our roots here after many, many years. We sure didn't want to leave," Bruce said.
So he'll tough out the commute until he retires.
Kyle Odegard covers the city of Corvallis and Benton County government. He can be reached at 758-9523 or kyle.odegard@lee.net.