@James Ritter   its a west coast history item.. but think of the gold rush's in the mid 1800's in CA and other western states.. who made the money.. it was not the miners it was those that supplied the pots and pans... :)And it think whats happening is a trend .. one you have so Much information on TV about getting rich in RE.. you have this phenom called BP with its 350k readers and the next thing you know you have all sorts of folks who think RE is the way to get rich easily and quickly and then they start reading ..

We use price per acre methodology in the South Western States with a minimums for smaller lots.  

I call that capitalism and it is the bedrock of western nations, especially the USA.