Not me. That's where I owned my rental houses, that I did well from. Two were in Lancaster, and one in Palmdale. I bought in during the real estate boom of the early 2000's. When houses in LA were becoming harder to afford, property in the high desert was still affordable to many. As LA buyers who could no longer afford to buy in Los Angeles bought there, it helped to drive the price of property up. I imagine that local folk also hurried to buy, as they saw prices go up swiftly.
My friend got in when it was still possible to purchase a 3 bedroom family house with 5% down and achieve a small positive monthly cash flow from the rent. I came along a year later, by which time the market had begun to rise, and had to put 10% down on each property in order to cash flow positive. I sold them all about 18 months to 2 years later for a good profit (at the peak of the market, as it later turned out).
I don't know the Lancaster/Palmdale market very well, as I was only in it for a short while. I imagine that when things go south, they go further south, and for longer, than in Los Angeles, but the market does follow the fortunes of it's bigger sibling to the south, though not exactly at the same time.
