"I wonder where people get all that money to buy the high-priced houses and maintain them."

They are financed by investors, many of them foreign, who commission them to build high-priced houses for sale.

A profile of buyers of high-priced houses done by Burbank, he said, revealed that most buyers come from the immediate area.

Yet Mr. Tachdjian said there is a market for high-priced single houses.

An increasing number of buyers, they said, are knocking down high-priced older houses and replacing them with new ones.

Captain Becker said the place reeked like a high-priced bawdy house, -which seemed to please him.

"This town's reputation for high-priced houses acts as a filter," Mr. Fountain said.

With interest rates in Japan at historic lows, construction firms are building high-priced houses that no ordinary citizen can afford.

A critical factor in foreclosures, he said, is the large number of borrowers who bought high-priced houses in the 80's.

"When interest rates start creeping up," he said, "the high-priced houses will again be worth less than their mortgages."