Nicole,

My brother sells real estate in So. Ca, and it's a crazy marketplace, especially when you try to take was is S.O.P. there and make it work somewhere else. Through his pressure ("you're not properly representing the estate if you don't ask this [gouging] price for this house to start with") he compelled the listing of a family home way too far above the actual market price. By the time I convinced him it must be lowered enough to be reasonable, we had passed the good buying season. It sold in the worst time of year, cold gray rainy December, and the realtor and I figure we lost about $50,000 from what it SHOULD have sold for. So much for LA tactics!

So maybe you should move to Texas or Oklahoma? Just be careful to dodge those tornadoes, dust storms, droughts, floods. . .

SRS