It may be because you are looking in the wrong place or with the wrong person.

I have been in Real Estate for a long time. I have seen some dog shacks and I've seen mansions. To be honest, the vast majority of homes you see have some minor imperfections here and there (even new homes) but it's not anything major. Condos seem better taken care of because of what Civic95 said, the HOA takes care of all the outside stuff.

Again, to be honest I've seen homes in other states and I'd much rather live here than there. As far as I've personally seen, we get a lot for our dollar here. I've seen homes in Cali, Nevada, Texas, etc. where $500k barely gets you a decent house where here it can get you a mansion. Then you start looking and you get almost no property, shoddy construction, and pay outrageous amounts of money for taxes.