Supply and demand: the expensive California is the coastal, job-dense California, and the inland part of the state tells a different story. The expensive parts are the coastal, job-rich counties: Orange County, Los Angeles, San Diego, Ventura, Santa Barbara. Two forces push prices up together there. Supply is tightly constrained by geography and by how hard and costly building is, while demand stays strong because the high-paying job clusters, the climate, and the coastline draw more buyers than there are homes. Limited supply meeting deep, well-paid demand is the whole recipe. Move inland and both sides of the equation change. The Central Valley and the areas well north and inland of the coast have more buildable land and less job-driven bidding pressure, so prices drop sharply. One recent example: a referral of ours closed in the Antelope Valley, around Lancaster and Palmdale, in the mid-$300,000s. That's a fraction of a coastal Orange County price in the same state. Change the location and you change the price.