I hear you, Pattie. I cannot believe inflation. Case in point, my California house was built in 1959. It is 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, family room, which was never separated so it is now one huge kitchen, fireplace, hardwood floors, no A/C until I had one put in before the pandemic. It is on a small piece of property behind a shopping center. One selling point is close to a freeway and schools. It is considered like a "bedroom" community. It is no big deal. We bought it in 1973 for $28,950. It is now worth over $600k. I WOULDN'T pay that much for it.

The rent on it I get is $2,200/mo. I took out an equity loan on it to pay cash for this house, which is much smaller for $116k. They were asking $120k. So, part of the rent goes to pay off that loan.

I wouldn't pay that much to rent, nor would I pay almost a million dollars to buy it. It is really nothing special, but it is in California, which I'd never go back to. Things are so bad there that my insurance moved out of California a couple of years ago, so I had to get new insurance. As a result, I pay $500 more a month now. My insurance agent said that a lot of companies are leaving California.

I called AAA to see if I could get a cheaper quote since I already have AAA for my car. I was told that it would probably be better for me to just keep the insurance offered by my agent.

I don't know what those poor rich (the area was a very exclusive area) people whose houses went up in flames last year are doing. Probably fighting to keep some compensation.

Sorry - this is a sore subject for me.