Go to your local Home Depot or equivilant store Buy yourself some pcv pipe about 3- 6 foot long that you can  put a hammer in and some roofing nails. they have orange plastic rings around them ....

In South Orange County, California 2 bedrooms start at $1600 to $2000.

Can anyone advise on how to best use this map for my situation (i.e. focus on the orange/yellow/purple etc)?

Just the cash flow savings themselves would allow me to buy a house once a year, and I'm not paying the transaction costs as a buyer...Again, in your example, you're comparing apples to oranges.

@Jerry Padilla yes, while it needs a little work, primarily cosmetic (you should see the paint colors, someone was a big Clemson fan - bright purple and orange!) 

The FZD we pull is usually more accurate since there are somewhere around 70 venders that provide these FZD service to lenders and their accuracy varies from vender to vender. here is a map showing The blue represents the high risk flood zone Identified with a AE and the elevation. the orange/yellow color is a X500 which is not a flood zone that lenders will require flood coverage if you carefully at the map you can see some parcels that are in the blue but the structure isn't or some where the structure is partially in the AE flood zone. 

As I understand it, Orange county is one of the fastest growing markets as people re locate to florida. 

(A manager at HD told me that HD generally sends product back to the manufacturer rather than marking it down and blowing it out like Lowes does).I have bought ugly (orange looking Oak) 7mm, and nice (bright, light Pine)  7mm laminate at Lowes, one time for .52 cents a foot, but usually for .70 cents or so.  

In fact, most of the coastal areas of Orange County are.

(Agent Orange but not recognized, fixed income, divorced father of three in house children, collecting SSI) With that being said.