Help for a Dream: 48 Low-Cost Condos : Housing: Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter join in as Habitat for Humanity begins a project at Rancho Santa Margarita.

RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA —  In a county where average home prices are among the highest in the nation, former President Jimmy Carter and other officials hailed a ground breaking for 48 low-income condominiums Wednesday as an inspiration to those who never dreamed of owning real estate.

The condominium project, sponsored by Habitat for Humanity of Orange County, is the largest of 500 housing developments built in the United States by the international Christian organization.

The Fieldstone Co., a Newport Beach-based developer, is overseeing and helping finance construction through a nonprofit arm of the firm.

“Fieldstone has set an example here of how major construction firms can set aside a small portion of a beautiful project and be an inspiration, not only to other development companies and the families that will live there, but to public officials and the neighbors too,” Carter said.

Carter, a member of the Habitat for Humanity International board of directors, has hosted eight annual one-week work camps to build or renovate homes for the needy. The latest effort is in Tijuana, where Carter and other members of the group have pitched a tent village on the dusty hills outside of town for 1,200 volunteers building 100 homes in about five days.

The former President and his wife, Rosalynn, who spent the afternoon in Tijuana plastering over concrete, flew to Wednesday’s ceremony in Orange County in a helicopter. A throng of about 1,500 people greeted the Carters with enthusiastic cheers as they arrived at the broad expanse of raw earth that soon will sprout a forest of condominiums.

“We don’t take any government money,” Carter said of the nonprofit program that relies solely on private donations and volunteer labor. “We’re not a bunch of rich folks giving things away. We establish a true partnership with the people we help.”

The ceremonies included prayers, music by a Marine Corps band and the traditional shoveling of earth by Carter and dozens of other dignitaries.

At one point during the festivities, the Riverside-based rap group Kingdom Crush bounced onto the stage, its leader shaking his fist and shouting, “Yo! I think this program is great, so keep doing what you’re doing!” The rap band then began wheeling about the stage and intoning its anthem to the organization (“No more shacks in the co-mu-ni-ty, thanks to Habitat for Humanity”).

The Carters clapped and smiled.

Among those on-stage with the former President was Faye Lord, whose family was selected to live in one of the 48 new three-bedroom units when they are completed next spring.

“It’s a miracle, nothing short of a miracle,” said Lord, who spoke during the ceremony and introduced her husband, Andy, and five children. “I never thought we would be able to afford a house, certainly not in Orange County.”

Lord, a receptionist and secretary at the Saddleback Valley YMCA’s satellite branch in Rancho Santa Margarita, said the unit will cost the family a down payment of about $500 and then $300 or $400 a month on a 20-year, no-interest mortgage. That’s well below the $700 rent the family now pays for a cramped, two-bedroom apartment in Laguna Hills.

Before the ceremony, Habitat for Humanity founder Millard Fuller of Americus, Ga., strode around in a pair of overalls and greeted various volunteers and shook hands with everyone who cared to.

“This is a significant achievement,” said Fuller, who was fresh from a morning’s work on the Tijuana housing project. “Orange County is probably one of the highest-priced real estate districts in the world. That makes it harder.”

Fuller said the group’s efforts, which include an annual one-week push to erect a spate of homes in a single city, have been most effectively spotlighted because of the participation of the former President and his wife.

“They (Carters) work harder than anyone,” said Fuller’s wife, Linda, as she handed her husband a soft drink. “They really know what to do. Him especially. He’s a fine craftsman. . . . He’s even made furniture for his own home.”

Donations for the 48-unit condominium complex total several million dollars. The two-acre property has an estimated market value of $1.5 million, said Thomas Blum, executive vice president of the Santa Margarita Co.

The condominiums could be sold on the market for about $125,000 apiece, said David Langlois, Fieldstone’s senior vice president. Construction costs and building materials will be largely donated by contractors, he said.

To qualify for the units, participants must earn less than 50% of the county’s median annual income of $48,000 and contribute at least 1,000 hours of what is called “sweat equity”--500 hours of manual labor on their own houses and 500 hours of labor on other Habitat for Humanity projects, said Joe Perring, president of the Orange County chapter.

The Rancho Santa Margarita development is the largest of three projects planned by the local chapter. The others are a three-unit condominium complex in Santa Ana and a two-unit townhouse in Anaheim. All are expected to be completed by 1991, officials said.

Habitat for Humanity has 400 chapters in 31 countries. It has helped build or renovate more than 5,000 homes for low-income families since it was founded in 1976 by Fuller.

Since Sunday, 107 members of the organization have been on a six-day walk from Pasadena to Tijuana, a one-time event designed to draw attention to issues of the homeless, said walk coordinator Claire Williams. The lively group walked to Wednesday’s ground breaking from Laguna Hills.

Also on Wednesday, another organization on a 200-mile fund-raising walk from Woodland Hills to Tijuana passed through Orange County. The walk is being sponsored by Los Ninos, a San Ysidro-based group that assists poverty-stricken Mexican families with education, nutrition and home improvement projects.