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Although Irvine, California, attracts companies to settle here due to its safety and school district advantages, high housing prices make it difficult to recruit even doctors with annual salaries in the hundreds of thousands, prompting local government and the private sector to accelerate the promotion of middle-class housing solutions.
SouthCalifornia Orange Countyirwin Irvine is loved by many residents for its safety, cleanliness, and good school districts. In recent years, the city has undergone change and development, and many technology and medical companies have settled in the city, attracting more talents. However, high housing prices in the city have also brought side effects. Large companies in Orange County are having difficulty hiring people, according to people familiar with the matter. For example, even though the annual salary of doctors at Irvine Hospital is hundreds of thousands, it is still difficult to attract talents from outside the state.
Liu Lingchun, president of the non-profit organization “OC Housing Finance Trust” and Irvine City Councilor, said that in Orange County, “many large companies are unable to recruit people even if they offer high-paying positions.” He has talked to many executives of the company and they all have this problem. He gave an example: Irvine has four major Medicare network hospitals. It is difficult to hire not only general medical staff but also doctors with annual salaries of thousands from other states. The reason is simple. In other states, for 1 million yuan you can buy a very big house, but in Irvine you can only buy a very simple and ordinary house. He said the current median home price in Irvine is about $1.5 million. “Relatively speaking, it doesn’t mean much to come (to work).”
In recent years, several top medical groups have made investments in Irvine, Orange County, including City of Hope Hospital; UCI is building a new hospital; Hoag Hospital’s “Sun Family Campus” with six new buildings will be completed in 2026; and Kaiser Permanente.
Liu Lingchun said that if we want to develop the economy, we must first solve the housing problem. It is no longer a problem that low-income families cannot buy a house. Families with an annual income of more than 100,000 yuan cannot afford to buy a house. This is a problem throughout Orange County. The Orange County Housing Fund Trust, of which she serves as chair, initially focused on helping low-income families, but has now expanded its goal to help middle-class families. It is currently formulating a “Workforce Housing Finance” scheme, which is expected to provide assistance to middle-class families who are buying or renting homes for the first time, through a collaboration between the company and the government. Liu Lingchun said he hoped “the company will realize that solving the housing problem together will actually help the company recruit and retain talents.”
The current Cartwright Family Apartments in Irvine are affordable apartments rented to middle-class families, jointly promoted by the city government, builders, and banks.
There are also measures to solve the housing problem at the Irvine city government level. Liu Lingchun said that for example, the law stipulates that builders must provide 15% affordable housing or low-rent tenants. The city government also encourages builders to diversify apartment types and provide diverse options for first-time homebuyer families. The city can also provide long-term low-interest or interest-free loans to first-time homebuyers through federal and California government grants.
Irvine is one of the cities with the highest housing prices in Orange County, and housing prices in Orange County as a whole have long been well above the average in California and the United States. According to the latest data from Zillow, as of August 2026, the average house price in Orange County was about 1.179 million yuan, an increase of 2.8% from the same period last year; During the same period, the average price of California homes was about 764,000 yuan, and the national average price was only about 369,000 yuan. On the other hand, the state government also keeps putting pressure on local governments to build more housing. Under California’s Regional Housing Need Allocation (RHNA) system, Irvine is required to plan 23,610 housing units between 2021 and 2029. This quota ranks fifth among the 191 cities under the jurisdiction of the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG). The city government appealed to reduce the quota that year, but it was rejected by the appeal committee in January 2021. The city government also acknowledged that meeting the affordable housing quota for very low-income households would be a major challenge for Irvine.
Summary FAQ
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The main reason is that local housing prices are very high. Even if talents earn hundreds of thousands of annual salaries, it is still difficult to afford living expenses. You can buy big homes in other states, but you can only buy modest homes in Irvine, which makes it less attractive.
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Orange County is expanding its housing assistance target from low-income households to middle-class households, planning a working housing financing plan, and providing first-time home purchase or rental assistance in collaboration with companies, governments, and banks.
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Under the RHNA system, Irvine is required to plan 23,610 housing units from 2021 to 2029, and have a higher proportion of affordable housing; The city government acknowledged that it is very difficult to meet the household quota with very low incomes.
