To most people a house is a house is a house. They can't tell a rat hole that needs to be torn down from a house that is worth 259K, kid you not.I know someone whou used to buy repos and other distressed properties. He got out of the business because all these fools have come into the market and are overpaying. Nowadays the average distress house is selling for over 50K and it takes another 100K plus to make it livable, when it should be selling for no more than 20K . However, appraiser turn around and appraise houses in good shape as if they were distressed. This friend of mine now prefer to buy the better houses for 120 to 150K, add 10K to 20K in improvements and repairs then either sell them for about 180K or rent them. The only problem is that the banks don't want to lend him money except on the repos. One guy came to him and asked for a bid to fix the repo he had just bought, and went away angry because my friend wanted three times as much to fix the house than it cost to buy it. There are millions of people out there that have no concept of the cost of the materials and the cost of the labor. One cannot find many places under 150 a Sq. Ft. that are livable. There are few and far between. Just because the garbage is sellling much cheaper doesn't mean that the good stuff is going to.