Rod Christopher and Jill Stokes begin to imagine their dream home as they duck under a scaffold and enter a partially built model in a budding West Sacramento neighborhood.

The skeletal interior, the closest the couple can get to a finished model until June, follows just the floor plan that they want.

At No. 64 on a waiting list, Stokes and Christopher will have to wait weeks, if not months, for an opportunity to buy the 3,000-square-foot home.

"We have to call every week to find out what's happening," explained the 30-year-old Stokes.

In the capital region's new-home market, builders can't keep pace with demand, and the median sales price has risen to a record $386,990.

That's up 14 percent, or $47,000, from a year ago for the area encompassing Sacramento, Placer, El Dorado and Yolo counties, according to the Gregory Group, a Folsom-based new-home research firm.

The region's builders would run out of homes to sell in two weeks if today's sales pace continued and no new homes were offered for sale, the Gregory Group's data show. This two-week inventory of new homes for sale is the lowest for any quarter since the firm began tracking the new home market in late 1999. A year ago there was a six-week inventory of new homes for sale.

In an overheated market, buyers are also paying for the surging cost of land and supplies as builders pass along increases. Lot prices, for instance, have nearly doubled in three years, and other recurring costs, including wood and insurance, are also up sharply.

In the face of a lackluster local job market, many wonder who can afford the price of a new home. It could be your neighbor who has decided to cash out after a huge equity increase in an existing home and plunk down a hefty down payment on a new one.

However, an unprecedented number of special mortgage programs are opening the field to first-time buyers and others with small down payments, modest incomes or spotty credit. Buyers are also using so-called interest-only loans, paying only the interest for the first five years of the mortgage.

While a pervasive sense of urgency is driving many buyers who fear being priced out, say industry experts, others believe housing is the surest investment as geopolitical unrest has unsettled the stock market.

Still, the intensity of the rush on new homes is surprising to some experts because it comes despite continued sluggishness in traditional wage and salary employment.

Even if local job growth kicks into gear here later this year, many experts predict that sales and price increases will slow once mortgage rates begin to rise.

"If interest rates went to 7.5 percent, this market would slow by a third," says analyst John Schleimer of Roseville-based Market Perspectives. "Low interest rates are ... artificially propping up the marketplace."

This week's average for a fixed-rate 30-year mortgage was 5.79 percent, Freddie Mac reports. That's up sharply from last week's average of 5.52 percent, but it's still lower than the year-ago average of 5.85 percent.

Greg Paquin, who heads the Gregory Group, said price appreciation will taper off as more builders offer lower-priced attached and high-density detached homes in the capital region. In addition, buyers have a growing number of choices for new, less-expensive homes in neighboring Yuba and Sutter counties.

Condos are making a strong comeback. Two projects selling today - one in North Natomas and the other in Folsom - are logging especially strong sales. And it's no wonder: The median sale price runs about $250,000 - $137,000 less than the median for all new homes.

"We could sell them all in a month if we could release them that fast," said Dane Hillyard of developer Pacific West Cos., referring to sales at the company's 245-unit Syrah condo complex in North Natomas.

Pacific West is also seeking city approval to convert its nearby "luxury" apartment complex, now at the initial stage of construction, into for-sale condos. While condos sell quickly, he said, the high-end apartment market is oversupplied.

Sixty proposed subdivisions with attached homes - condos, town houses and duplexes - are winding through the planning process in the greater Sacramento region, according to the Meyers Group, a new-home research and consulting firm. The projects include 6,586 units, of which 1,700 could hit the market within a year.

Though close to a peak, new-home sales weren't a record last quarter. But some experts figure they would have been had builders been able to deliver homes fast enough. The evidence: First-quarter sales in Placer County fell 7 percent, compared with a year ago, but the median sale price rose nearly $78,000, or 16 percent.

Home buyers Jarrod and Brina Shepler, who are waiting for their home to be built in West Sacramento's new Bridgeway Lakes development, said they're thankful they bought in an early phase of a new community - a way to avoid what they consider inevitable price increases in later phases.

The couple, both in their mid-20s and employed in the real estate industry, are selling a 995-square-foot Sacramento house he bought a few years ago for $107,000.

Thanks to appreciation and some remodeling, they're hoping it can fetch $270,000, giving them a nice down payment on the 2,300-square-foot, $370,000 new home they're buying.

"It's almost to the point where you can't find a good house under $400,000," Brina Shepler said.