This house is typical of what you'll find out here.
It's a 3-bedroom 2-bath house, 1,671 square feet of interior space on a 7,236 square foot lot. It was built in 1975 and has a composition shingle roof. It has a wood frame bolted to a concrete slab foundation. The exterior walls are stucco with some brick trim (the brick is there for looks only).
The stucco on homes newer than that is finished in a slightly different way, and roofs tend to be made out of flat concrete or red clay Spanish-style tiles now. Otherwise, not that much has changed in construction around here in the 28 years since this house was built.
This type of construction is the norm because it's fairly inexpensive to build (although the asking price for this house is $205,000) and it stands up to earthquakes pretty well. Hurricanes and tornadoes are exceptionally rare out here, especially inland. The main downsides are termites (which is the reason why building codes require the wood and the earth to be separated) and flammability, although fires can be just as destructive and deadly in a brick house.
More pics of the same house:
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