But their search for something in the range of $215,000 or so hasn't gone as planned. The Clarkes found themselves caught in a rip tide of escalating home prices, a force that seems to tug them further from their goal each week.

"It seems like before it's even out on the market or published, it's in escrow," said Mike Clarke, who is the screening manager for the Transportation Security Administration at Hilo airport.

"The prices of houses just seem to be ridiculous at this point as far as what sellers are asking, but it seems like the houses are selling like hotcakes."

The statewide shortage of housing that is affordable for middle- and lower-income families has county officials on Maui and the Big Island planning new initiatives that will surface at the county councils later this year or in early 2005.

The proposals include plans on the Big Island to require that developers either construct more affordable housing or pay the county much higher "in lieu" fees to subsidize affordable homes elsewhere. There are plans on Maui to set up a special county fund to subsidize affordable private developments.

"This housing shortage could be totally eliminated with enough money," said Alice Lee, director of Housing and Human Concerns for Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa's administration. "It's a material thing, so it can be addressed with sufficient money."

The challenge is enormous. The recent escalation in home prices is jarring in Hilo, which has long been known for relatively affordable housing, but similar scenarios have shocked others across the state.

On Maui, the median price for a single-family home in November was $525,000; on Kaua'i, $547,000; on the Big Island, $315,000. The O'ahu median price reached a record $490,000 last month.

That Big Island median price was up 19 percent over November 2003, vastly outpacing the ability of thousands of working people and young couples to buy.

Kona job, Ka'u house

In Kona, real estate broker and County Councilman Joe Reynolds said people hoping to buy an "affordable" home near the Kailua employment hub are usually directed to Hawaiian Ocean View Estates, a sprawling subdivision on catchment water systems more than 40 miles away in Ka'u.

The truth is, there is no affordable housing available in the Kailua area of Kona, he said.

Chris Yuen, director of the Hawai'i County Planning Department, has a new initiative generated under Mayor Harry Kim's administration that would impose new, stricter affordable housing requirements on Big Island developers.

The county now requires developers seeking rezonings to make 10 percent of their projects affordable, or pay "in lieu" fees of $472 to the county for each market-priced house sold instead of building affordable units.

But the current "in lieu" fees adopted in 1998 "actually had the effect of greatly reducing the affordable requirement," he said because there hasn't been enough money generated to build such housing.

Yuen's proposal would double the affordable housing requirement to 20 percent and establish a system of credits for developers to use to meet that requirement.

For example, a project with 100 units would need to have 20 affordable units or otherwise must meet the requirement with 20 affordable housing "credits." Units marketed to lower-income buyers would accumulate more credits than units marketed to higher-income buyers.

The most expensive unit that could be considered "affordable" would be one selling for $205,000, one that a family making 140 percent of the Big Island family median income can afford. The Big Island's median income is $51,000 for a family of four.

Under the county's plan, a developer would receive one-half of one credit for building such a home. A home built for families at 80 percent of the median income would qualify for two credits each, meaning only 10 of those units would meet the entire affordable housing requirement for the hypothetical 100-unit project.

Developers would still be able to pay money in lieu of building affordable housing, but it will cost them: Yuen said a developer who markets homes for $400,000 without building any affordable housing would be required to pay the county $15,500 per house sold, or far more than the current fee.

The county strategy assumes developers must be pressured to build affordable housing, because if there were no regulations, they would "just chase the high end, because that's where the biggest profit margin is," Yuen said.

Bernard Carvalho, director of the Kaua'i Office of Community Assistance, said working groups there are reviewing the Kaua'i County policy of requiring developers to provide 10 percent affordable housing to determine if the percentage should to be increased.

In other counties

On O'ahu, Honolulu officials already have a 30 percent affordable housing requirement, said city spokeswoman Carol Costa. Typically a third of those affordable units are set aside for families earning 80 percent of the median income or less, and the rest are for families earning 120 percent of median or less, she said.

Maui imposes similar affordable housing requirements ranging from 10 percent to 25 percent, depending on the type of projects. Hotel developments face the most strict 25 percent requirement, Lee said.

During the past year. Lee said, the county has also been asking for "voluntary" contributions to be used for affordable housing whenever developers ask the county for state land-use boundary amendments, special management area permits or changes in the county's community plans that guide development.

Lee said it is the only program of its kind in the state, and it has earned the county almost $10 million in commitments toward affordable housing. Since no one so far has refused to contribute to the voluntary program, Lee said she doesn't know what would happen if someone declined.

"It has never come up because our developers are very socially conscious, and ... it's really clear that there is an incredible need for housing," she said.

A new initiative planned by the Arakawa administration would create a taxpayer-financed fund to subsidize construction of affordable housing, Lee said. She said the administration is still working out the details to present to the County Council, including how much money would be set aside in the fund.

"That's going to be major, because if it passes, every year a substantial amount of money from the general revenues will be set aside for housing, and we won't rely strictly on new development, which could go up or down depending on interest rates and the economy and the war," she said.

Lee said the administration doesn't have the staffing to get into the development business itself, but would form partnerships with nonprofit or for-profit developers to use the money from the proposed fund.

Maui developer Everett Dowling attributed the problem to Hawai'i's long government approval process for developments.

"The state of Hawai'i has among the most cumbersome and expensive land-use laws in the country," he said. "For a normal subdivision it takes so long to get through the process that even if you initially intended for it to be an affordable project, by the time you get done with it, it's no longer affordable."

Simplifying process

Gov. Linda Lingle's administration agreed that the approval process can be shortened, and met with the county mayors and planning directors earlier this year to discuss ways to simplify the system.

Dowling is president of Dowling Company Inc., which has seven projects under way on Maui. Units in those projects will sell for as little as $99,500 on Hawaiian Homes lands and as much as $8.9 million elsewhere, he said.

He calls affordable housing "workforce housing" because it is priced for ordinary working people, and contends that government efforts to force developers to build those units make the situation worse.

Dowling suggested that the counties may want to try the model used by the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, where the state installs infrastructure such as roads and utilities, and brings in private developers to build the homes. Hawaiian Homes is also able to shorten the permitting process because it is exempt from county codes.

Land, infrastructure and the permitting process account for more than half the cost of house-and-lot packages, Dowling said, which allows Hawaiian Homes to provide homes to Native Hawaiians far below market prices.

At the moment Hawaiian Homes is the state government's leading supplier of affordable for-sale housing. Hawaiian Homes spokesman Lloyd Yonenaka said the department plans to distribute 2,590 lots to Native Hawaiian lessees on Maui, the Big Island and O'ahu over the next three to five years, and that number is expected to increase as more projects are added.

How many of those lots will have houses on them depends on how many Hawaiian families can qualify for the mortgages they need to build homes, Yonenaka said.

On Maui, the county is sponsoring or joining with developers on some major developments, including one in Waikapu that will provide 200 homes in the $225,000-to-$285,000 range in the next three years; another project in the planning stages would provide 200 more affordable units in Waiehu in Central Maui; and a third in West Maui would provide 400 affordable units, Lee said.

County officials on the Big Island also are moving ahead with an affordable project and have solicited proposals from developers to build 1,000 affordable homes for sale or rent on 268 acres the county owns in Waikoloa Village.

Those units would all be earmarked for families earning no more than 140 percent of the median income for the island.

Back in Hilo, Mike Clarke said he and his wife may end up purchasing an empty lot and building their own home as a way to save money.

But even in land-rich Hilo, there are few lots for sale, and Clarke, 31, said the county should push through more rezonings or take other steps make more land available.

"It's pretty tough, because as soon as land goes up, whatever someone's asking, they're getting what they want," he said.

"It makes it really tough to find something."