A SANCTUARY STATE FOR CALIFORNIANS?

The smoke is clearing in some burned-over neighborhoods of Los Angeles and environs, and what remains is pretty well wrecked.

Josh Edelson photograph for Getty Images retrieved from Daily Caller.

The photograph accompanies Ron Hart counting coup on all the ways Californian politicians failed to protect their constituents, and he couldn't resist another dig.  "With Gavin’s policies in California, the state might get onboard to build a wall. This one would keep more disgruntled taxpayers from escaping to Tennessee and Texas."

But why not pick up and move to Illinois?  No, seriously.  Hollywood Life ran a series of photos of houses that belong to people you might have heard of, as has Realtor.  And I got to looking at what several million dollars bought you, and how small some of the properties are, and how tightly packed in they are.

I then looked out the south windows at Cold Spring Shops headquarters.

That's dusk, a few summers ago, with Hooty the Great Horned Owl looking for an evening snack.  Between the owls, the coyotes, and the foxes, the chipmunks, field mice, and rabbits have to be careful raiding the Victor E. Garden.

I confess, the view to the southwest is of a decorative pond and cornfields.  But is being uphill from the ocean, without even an ocean view, worth several million dollars more than what a four-bedroom goes for?

Moreover, if you like your one-party rule, you can keep your one-party rule.  If you like paying a lot of taxes, you can continue to pay a lot of taxes.  If you like urban crime and aggressive panhandlers, there's Chicago, complete with beaches lapped by waters free of sharks.  If no immigrant is illegal, well, the Chicago city council is on board with your luxury beliefs.

There is something going on in Illinois. Right now there is a lot of real estate turnover in ... Rockford.

A little-known city in Illinois has been named the surprising hottest housing market in the country.

Rockford, known for its charming streets and lush greenery, has leapt to the top of Realtor.com's monthly list of America's hottest markets.

This is the city's first time claiming the top spot, beating out frequent winner Manchester, New Hampshire - which had dominated the list 31 times since 2017.

Located just an hour and a half from Chicago, Rockford had a median home list price of $242,000 as of December - well below the national average of $356,000, according to Zillow.

The city's housing market is considered 'hot' because homes are selling quickly, with an average of just 43 days on the market compared to the national average of 70 days.

'Rockford's hotness means that high demand is met with low inventory as buyers claim available homes,' Realtor.com senior economic analyst Hannah Jones said in the report, which covered December.

'This affordable area has seen sustained demand this year as mortgage rates and home prices deter buyers from searching in higher-priced areas,' she explained.

For the 15th month in a row, every market on Realtor's hottest housing markets list came from the Northeast or Midwest. In December, the two regions evenly split the list, with each claiming 10 spots.

Manchester's real estate market is probably buoyed by refugees from Taxachusetts.  I don't get to Rockford frequently enough to look at construction activity augmenting the housing stock.  There is construction under way to the east of Sycamore and on the DeKalb County side of Maple Park: to what purpose I do not know.

Housing might be relatively cheap in Rockford because Rockford remains a distressed area.

The town is a draw for many families as it is equipped with multiple hospitals, as well as good employment prospects with several aerospace companies and manufacturing job employers.

However, the area's unemployment rate is still almost double the national average, standing at 8.1 percent in November.

I should caution Californians, particularly from Beach Boys country, even if there are aerospace opportunities to be found in Rockford, that every so often you have real winter.

That kind of snowpack helps control the more dangerous mosquitoes and keeps the trees from drying out.