USA. Vallejo, California. 2017. Vallejo CA has long been known for its gangs, bad schools, and crime. Exacerbating its reputation as a “miserable place”, the city declared bankruptcy in 2008 after the core of its economy, the Naval Shipyard on Mare Island, shut down. People lost jobs and moved away, leaving houses shuttered and empty. A decade later, according to Realtor.com, Vallejo is ranked #1 real estate market in the US as the San Francisco Bay area continues to expand with the tech boom, pricing working and middle class earners out of the city and East Bay. My partner and I, both photographers, fell in line with the trend out of necessity and moved to Vallejo last year, wanting to be close to the energy of a major city and quickly discovering this was the only place in the Bay we could afford. This series reflects on my own experience of and assumptions about the mythical idea of real estate, long part and parcel of the American dream. I began with my own realtor and branched out through connections made over the past year since moving to town.