Try Frazier Park

I keep reading gloomy stories about the Southern California housing industry, and I know for a fact that prices of homes have come down in the San Fernando Valley during the past few months. The reason this has happened is clear. Home prices escalated so quickly and so much that few could afford them anymore.

Prices in Los Angeles County are still out of reach for most home buyers but there are alternatives.

There is an area that few people know about that is only about 45 or 50 minutes from Los Angeles city limits. It has no smog, no congestion, no traffic jams, no gangs and virtually no crime. It has a small-town atmosphere where you know the shopkeepers by their first names and people wave to you when you drive down the street.

For a 15- or 20-minute drive, you can go water-skiing in the summer and cross-country skiing in the winter.

The little town, about 3 miles off Interstate 5 and about halfway between Bakersfield and Valencia, is called Frazier Park.

You can still buy a starter home for under $120,000 and a beautiful three-bedroom home for around $150,000. In the surrounding communities of Lebec, Lake of the Woods, Pinon Pines and Pine Mountain Club they are building, on large lots, beautiful homes for an average price of about $175,000.

MARY FLEISCHER

Frazier Park