It has come to this: The asking rent for a studio apartment in Orange County’s larger complexes now averages $1,548 a month, according to the third-quarter rent report by apartment tracker Real Answers.

You need to earn $62,000 a year for that studio to be affordable – that is, no more than 30 percent of your gross income. And that’s not counting utilities, which should be included in that 30 percent limit.

A family needs a combined annual income of $68,600 to afford the typical one-bedroom rent of $1,715 a month (not counting utilities), the most common apartment type in the county, Real Answers data show.

And you need to earn $89,320 a year to afford the $2,202-a-month rent for the typical two-bedroom, two-bath unit, the second-most common apartment here.

The average for apartments of all sizes increased 5.2 percent in the past year to a record $1,965 a month, according to Real Answers’ survey of asking rents during the July-through-September period.

Vacancies, meanwhile, fell to their lowest level in 10 years: 3.4 percent.

Real Answers is one of four apartment trackers to release third-quarter rent numbers for the county in the past week.

Because of differences in survey techniques, the averages vary from $1,781 a month reported by Reis Inc. to $2,048 a month reported by Axiometrics. MPF Research reported an average third-quarter rent of $1,896 a month.

Real Answers numbers are higher because the firm surveys bigger complexes, which tend to be pricier.

But all four indicators show the same trend: Rents are at all-time highs, while vacancies are down.

And that’s wreaking havoc on household budgets.

Lake Forest resident Cheryl Wiese and her husband may need to downsize from their two-bedroom apartment at the Serrano Highlands complex because they can’t afford their $1,850-a-month rent, plus $200 in monthly utilities.

Their housing bill eats up 43 percent of their paycheck, leaving no room for other niceties such as savings, a retirement plan or health insurance. They go to a clinic for low-income residents for health care. Vacations aren’t part of their vocabulary.

“All our income goes for rent,” said Wiese, 48. “We have bills, too. Car and groceries and credit card bills, and (my husband) pays to his kids, too, in the Philippines. We don’t have enough.”

Although her husband has a degree in engineering and she has a bachelor’s in biology, they can’t find anything better than working as caregivers for the elderly. Their combined income is $30 an hour, or $62,400 a year.

A one-bedroom would save them money, but would be hard on their eighth-grader, since he’s at an age when he needs his own room, Wiese said.

“We don’t qualify for low-income housing, but we’re just barely making it,” Wiese said. “We’re both working full time, and it’s just not enough.”

Rents are up in all 23 cities Real Answers tracks. The biggest increase occurred in one of Orange County’s most affordable cities: Stanton. Asking rents for a vacant unit there jumped 8 percent year over year to $1,626 a month, vs. $1,155 a month six years ago.

Buena Park had the lowest average rent in Real Answers’ survey at $1,523 a month, up 4.4 percent from a year earlier.

Newport Beach continues to have the county’s highest apartment rents. Landlords there were seeking an average of $2,513 a month last summer, up 4.8 percent from a year earlier. Newport monthly rents climbed $600 over the past six years.

The next priciest cities all have asking rents topping $2,000 a month: Irvine (average, $2,231), Aliso Viejo ($2,059), Huntington Beach ($2,011) and Costa Mesa ($2,007).

Contact the writer: 714-796-7734 or jcollins@ocregister.com

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