I mean, you sort of prove the point: Right now you're trying to find a suburban home in SoCal. There are suburbs everywhere, and most of those places are far cheaper than SoCal. Likely with better schools, no bidding wars, and possibly even better "suburban" amenities. So why are you looking in SoCal and not those other places?

The urban core the suburb is tethered to matters more to buyers than they're willing to admit directly.