"A house that was $325,000 is now $150,000 to $180,000, and they're getting multiple offers,"
she said.

They're selling so fast that no one bothers to stage them.

"The public doesn't care; the houses are so far under market that there's no need," she said.

Who's buying? Moderate-income folks.

McFall says she can get a teacher, who's probably been paying $1,000 a month rent, into a house for $1,200 a month -- that's includes principal, interest, taxes and insurance. Investors also are buying, and some are even back into the old flipping game. No, it's not dead in Stockton.

So many homes have sold that inventory, 600 homes six months ago, is now half of that or less, McFall said.
The Stockton/Modesto area was particularly beset by subprime mortgages during boom times as house prices shot up out of the range of moderate-income earners. Many bought with no money down.

So it's perhaps no surprise that 85 percent of the homes available are either bank-owned foreclosed properties or short sales where the owner is in trouble and the lender is willing to sell to a buyer for less than it is owed.

That means the lender takes a bath, but McFall isn't sympathetic. During the bubble's runup, "banks made a ton of money, so I don't feel sorry for them," she said.

Rather, her sympathy lies with the Steady Eddies, those folks who paid their mortgages on time, kept up their homes and are now trying to sell. Those folks, only 15 percent or so of the market, "can't compete at all" with the foreclosures, McFall said.