own an old house with wood floors and "interesting" rooms (like the sunroom in my sister-in-law's house and the quirky library in a friend's house)

I don’t live in a particularly friendly area for first-time home buyers. I know I won’t be able to afford this for several years… but the good news is that there are many enclaves in LA county of old, original homes that are priced much lower than the icky gigantic Orange County “houses”. I really want to live either closer to the beach or closer to downtown though. Homes in my favorite old neighborhood (Venice- where many of the “streets” the old bungalows are on are too narrow for cars) are close to $1million, even for small 2-bedrooms. We might be able to afford an empty lot along the canals in about 40 years. Yesterday I found some (fairly) reasonably priced old houses in Topanga Canyon near Malibu… that might be a possibility, except I might be too afraid of wildfires. Im hoping for significant drops in housing prices and some sort of miracle with our finances…. Maybe I should give it up, become an expat and buy a flat in Oxford.