[quote=harvey]I understand why homes in cold climates DO have basements.

But why do homes here NOT have basements?[/quote]

Basements aren’t that cheap to build. (You have to excavate away the dirt, build foundations and with modern codes do a good bit of water sealing) As a builder, if you don’t have to add a basement you will make more money building above ground square footage. After all, when someone goes to buy a house the basement isn’t counted in the house’s square footage. If buyers would pay the costs builders would build basements, but they’ve found that in most cases buyer’s would rather pay for above ground square footage than basements. Note that in areas with real expensive land and houses (Del Mar, La Jolla, etc) more and more of the top end houses are being built with basements because the cost of the lot is so high it justifies the additional cost of the basement.