An amusing exercise is to visit http://zillow.com and search for properties <= $10000, $1000, $100, $10 & $1. You have to dig thru a lot of distractions, but in some large areas you can find some reasonable options (given circumstances).
I don't understand how a house can cost $1. What prevents me from buying 100 of $1 houses just for fun? Seems like a pretty decent investment if nothing else.
Other people have answered that question for you, but I'd also like to point out that a number of cities have had problems from far-off speculators buying up dirt cheap properties and then failing to maintain them or pay taxes. In one case, it may have contributed to a gas explosion in an abandoned house in Cleveland: http://www.ideastream.org/news/feature/long_distance_ownersh...
