Buy a foreclosure

Price: $204,900

Bedrooms: 4
Baths: 2.5
Square feet: 1,926

Description: This is a two-story Mediterranean design just six years old. It's set in a beautiful, gated country-club community with a lake. It sports an open kitchen, a family room with fireplace and an attached two-car garage. It also has nice features, such as high ceilings, a big concrete patio and an entertainment center niche in the family room. Residents can walk to the lake.

It's a bargain for this part of Stockton, which is called Brookside, where the average home for sale is listed at about $750,000, according to the real estate Web site Trulia. Homes similar to this one are listed for an average of about $280,000.

Stockton boomed during the bubble when many buyers, priced out of the Bay area, moved further out. Many of the buyers though these would be investment properties that they would soon flip and use the equity for another home.

When the bubble burst, Stockton crashed as hard as anywhere. It has had one of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation since 2006, according to RealtyTrac. Prices have dropped by about half in the past year alone, according to Zillow, the online real estate site.

For further information: Century 21 M&M Associates

NEXT: Miami, Fla.