Im straight down the 5 freeway from you down in So Cal and I also have year round flying weather.
As far as special building tools, all you really need is an Xacto knife with spare blades, some single edge razor blades and a couple of sanding T-Bars or blocks. A covering iron and gun are cheap.
Anything more special that that is just gravy!
I understand how there are people that dont like to build tho. My father just retired about a year ago and I figured he would start building kits but he is strictly from ARF. Just not his thing.
Me, I plan to retire back east about 13 years from now and am building up my retirement stash of kits to build during those Pittsburgh winters I keep hearing so much about.
Depending on how I stack the boxes I think I have a cord of balsa so far.