<prompt> Human: Just got a promotion yeah for me! but part of the deal is my family has to relocate to Cali and the company is paying relocation. We live in northern MN now. Concord CA is where the company office is and I will have a home office but will need to commute about once a week to Concord. We are thinking of renting or buying in the Santa Rosa area...less sticker shock there and its a beautiful area. I have a few concerns that could use the advice of some San Fran area rpersonalfinance redditors.1. After the sale of my home in MN Ill have about 75K cash. That does not seem like enough to buy a house in CA! I could buy an amazing property with that in MN. Everything in CA besides mobile homes seems to be 500K or more. We are okay with a small fixer-upper type house that we could flip in a few years Im pretty handy and I like the work of fixing houses. but Im concerned about putting so much of our cash savings into a down payment in an unreliableunknown market.2. Renting a place. I think we can secure adequate housing for our family husbandwife18mo old babydog for 2000 to 2500 a month. I have not rented in 15 years and am somewhat repulsed by the thought of renting again. Are there tax advantages in CA for renting or any reasons why renting would be a smart decision? Aside from the obvious of not committing all my cash to buy a house3. How the hell do normal people afford to move to CA? 4. Is a once weekly commute from Santa Rosa to Concord more of an undertaking than i think it will be? Where I live now there is no rush hour traffic and I get home in 6 minutes.Any advice will be appreciated...CA will be a new world to me. It was -5 Farenheit this morning in MN.  <response>: Id rent for a year first, to see if you like the area, and if the jobeconomy holds up. Then you can also get a feel for where you want to live. 