You give a nice synopsis of the Piggington Blog (er, Powayseller’s posts) over the past 2+ years. Nearly everything you said makes sense, however, it will take some time for the general public (and fundamentals) to catch up.
I want to say that I feel you, but that there is some inconsistency with at least one of your statements. The Minnetonka vs. Irvine example is the one I would like to highlight. Although both cities have extremely similar median incomes, they both have extremely dissimilar housing demand.. The reason that Minnetonka median home prices are so much lower than Irvine’s is simply due to supply and demand. How many people do you hear of driving cross country from the East Coast to end up in…Minnesota?
In hindsight, it is plain to see that a plethora of Irvine’s demand was driven by speculation in the OC, LA County, as well as Riverside County. With that said, even speculation has to succumb to the laws of supply and demand. The point I am trying to drive across here is that there appears to be a measurable difference between the number of people that want to purchase a property in Irvine (nice weather year round), versus those that want to purchase a property in Minnetonka (nice weather May-September, crappy weather the rest of the year).
Of course, local economies, diversity, public schools, and the like all play a role, but you catch my drift. Having grown up in Maine myself, I see exactly where you are coming from. Ten years ago I would probably have told you that you are completely full of it. However, Arizona, Texas, and Nevada have caught on and present much more competition to potential California transplants. Add to this the age of the Internet and you have a workforce that can potentially be connected from anywhere there an internet connection.
