Getting rich is a feat best accomplished here today by tapping into the inventory spawned by the unfortunate end to other people’s richness.

This is the sort of opportunistic thinking that prompted Mr. Joseph  our tour guide on today’s foreclosure safari  to buy a bus on Craigslist. After he bought the vehicle, which had previously been used to ferry parishioners to a Baptist church, he had it painted green, then added his new tour-company logo in red. (Another employer of the “‘R’ Us” designation, Toys ‘R’ Us, threatened legal action to force him to find another name, Mr. Joseph tells riders on his bus. He says he has agreed to change the name in the next few months.)

Tanned and sinewy with sunglasses nesting in his hair, Mr. Joseph looks and sounds like the comedian Ray Romano, minus the agita. He deals primarily in houses owned by Fannie Mae, the government-backed mortgage financier. He cleans and sometimes renovates them before putting them on the market, clearing away The Mess in the service of selling an updated version of The Story.

On a recent tour, eight potential buyers occupied the upholstered bench seats of his bus.

Norm Tardie, a semiretiree down from Vermont, is hunting for bargain investments. A retired heating and air-conditioning contractor from Massachusetts in a yellow Hawaiian shirt is looking for a possible vacation place.

Mr. Joseph indulges the classic shtick of the Florida sales pitch.

“Where we from?” he asks one couple, who conveniently hail from Illinois.

“How cold is it in Illinois today?” he asks.

Impressively cold.

“So we appreciate where we’re at today,” he says. “That’s the way we want you to feel when you walk into a house.”

These prices cannot last! This is Mr. Joseph’s essential message, one he expresses in a multitude of ways. “You cannot purchase the bricks and mortar, and build a house for what they’re selling for.”