It is rare to find good houses for that price even with the housing market crashing. Some states due to many factors, pollution, weather, taxes and just luck are cheap. Often if a house is south of 200k it is not in a major city and if it is then it is a home that is very small or filled with issues. One of my best friends just bought a house for 130,000 but it was previously a HUD home and has major issues that had to be fixed prior to him moving into it. So he had to do just over 20,000 in remodeling just to live there much less all the on going fixes.