HALF A MILLION DOLLARS FOR FIRST TIME, STATE'S MEDIAN HOME PRICE HITS MAGIC NUMBER.

Byline: Brent Hopkins Staff Writer

The American Dream got even more expensive in April, as the median price of a home in California surpassed the half-million dollar mark for the first time, a report issued Tuesday found.

With half the houses in the state selling for above $509,230 and half selling below, the California Association of Realtors found the market advanced 12.5 percent in the last year. More than 658,000 single family homes sold at an annualized rate, a 2.7 percent increase from the sales pace in April 2004.

Los Angeles County saw a slightly more moderate median price of $485,900, a 14.7 percent increase in the last year. Ventura County's price hit $649,210, a 5.8 percent hike.

The group credits favorable interest rates, better inventory and an improved economy for pushing prices up, but worries that first-time buyers will find themselves increasingly shut out of the market.

``Our median price is more than double the national median,'' said Robert Kleinhenz, CAR's deputy chief economist. ``We should be concerned about the fact that home prices have increased so quickly, because incomes haven't.''

In a separate report on Tuesday from the National Association of Realtors, the national median increased to $203,800 in April, up 15.1 over the same month last year. While it's fantastic news for homeowners, staving off once again talk of a real estate bubble that never seems to materialize, it presents a daunting task for those trying to break in.

``People leave here crying,'' said Joyce Riskas, a Realtor and sales manager for RE/MAX on the Boulevard in Woodland Hills. ``I get people in here once a week who can't afford anything. We ask how much they can pay a month, and, if it's less than $2,000, they can't afford to buy.''

She sees young buyers pooling their resources to buy houses to rent together, investing in income property out of state or starting with condos before upgrading to single family homes. While it make take a few years of eating macaroni-and-cheese dinners and cutting out luxuries, any equity gives prospective homeowners something to bank on when buying up.

``They've got in their head that they're getting a four-bedroom house with three baths, a pool,'' said Michael Green, the broker-owner of Michael Green Realty and Investment in Granada Hills. ``But they're looking around and seeing a two-bedroom house with one bathroom. They may go through two or three Realtors, but they've got to have some common sense and acquiesce.''

Kathy Palmer, a 29-year-old project associate for Thousand Oaks-based Amgen Inc., has watched the market explode all around her in the past three years. She and her husband started off living in her parents' former home in Van Nuys before selling in 2002 to relocate to Simi Valley. They recently sold the $425,000 house and upgraded to a $790,000 five-bedroom, three bath place with 3,300 square feet.

Without the first house already in the family, she doubts she'd have ever been able to buy her way into the market, even with two incomes.

``When someone says they have a million-dollar house, you think, OK, it's just a regular place,'' she said. ``A couple of years ago, you'd have thought they had a mansion in Malibu.''

With double-digit price hikes in every nearly every region in the state, the housing market's climb shows little sign of abating. Though inventory has improved to a three-month supply, markedly better than the 1.3 months' worth on hand last April, prices don't appear to be headed down anytime for the rest of the year.

``A million dollars isn't rich anymore - it's middle class,' said Riskas. ``When I started 10 years ago, it was hard to sell a house for $150,000. Now we don't think twice about selling a $1 million property to average 9-to-5 people.''

Brent Hopkins, [phone]

brent.hopkins(at)dailynews.com