Temecula gets you a much nicer house for the money than Orange County. The tradeoffs are summer heat and, above all, the commute. A home in the high six figures in Temecula could run well over a million for something comparable closer to the OC coast. It sits in an inland, near-desert pocket, so you get a stretch of genuinely hot days in summer and pleasant weather much of the rest of the year. One of us lived there for a couple of years and found the weather fine outside those hottest days. The commute is what breaks people. If you work in Orange County, Riverside, or San Diego, that drive is the bigger issue by far. A listener once tried a two-and-a-half-hour-each-way commute several days a week from even further out and quit after a few months. So weigh house-for-the-money against daily life. If you can work locally or remotely, the value case is strong. If you'd be commuting to the coast every day, price in that drive before you count the savings.