Yup, that's one thing about this area, the increase has been amazing - I signed on my new house in December, I haven't even moved in yet (will Thursday - woot!) and I'm up almost 100K in equity.

And I don't see it slowing down any time soon here, mainly because of the government but also because population in the US is simply on the rise and this is a densely populated area.

Have fun in Vegas. Make sure you check out several parts of town, but I prefer either some parts of Henderson (closer to the mountains the better) or like I said, even Boulder City but BC may be out of your price range. I could get to Nellis from BC in the same amount of time it takes me to get from Manassas to Reston and it's almost three times the distance

They whine about traffic in Vegas, but they really don't have traffic that bad - having to change lanes while you are doing 70 on the beltway doesn't constitute unbearable traffic