As a bus packed with prospective homebuyers rolls down Peyton Drive in Far North Dallas, Tess Langevin crouches to look out the windshield.

MICHAEL AINSWORTH/DMN

Prospective homebuyers, led by Tess Langevin, made a stop Saturday at a home in North Dallas during the Foreclosure House Tour. Every Saturday, Ms. Langevin and several colleagues will load up their bus with clients to see eight or nine homes.

"See the Ebby sign up there?" Ms. Langevin says to the driver, pointing toward a five-bedroom rambler. "There we go."

The bus – emblazoned with Ms. Langevin's image on three sides – pulls to a halt. It's time for another stop on the Foreclosure House Tour.

Every Saturday morning, Ms. Langevin and several real estate colleagues load up a 22-seat bus with clients and set off on a sightseeing tour that reflects today's shaky economic times.

The half-day tour includes stops at eight or nine homes reclaimed by banks during the recent wave of North Texas foreclosures. The homes range from extreme fixer-uppers to spotless new abodes with granite countertops and media rooms.

"It gives you a different perception of the foreclosures," Demetria Newkirk, a Carrollton city employee, said Saturday after viewing an elegant two-story North Dallas home recently marked down from $1.1 million to $795,000.

"I wouldn't even think that kind of house would be a foreclosure," she said.

Ms. Langevin said her regular clients constantly ask about foreclosed homes. She got the tour bus idea earlier this year after hearing about a real estate agent who offers similar bus tours in California.

When one of her colleagues spotted a church bus on craigslist.com, she snagged it, stamped it with her likeness and Web site and began offering the tours in late February.

MICHAEL AINSWORTH/DMN

Ms. Langevin shows Randy Myers the listed price of a North Dallas home during a stop on the tour. One home in the area was marked down recently from $1.1 million to $795,000.

"They were already asking about it, so the market was gearing towards that," she said. "And every time we turn on the news, that's all they talk about. So I thought we may as well try to create a niche in the market."

Banks trying to unload foreclosed homes often list them far below their appraised values, creating opportunities to land a bargain. But as Ms. Langevin warned her clients, "when you buy a foreclosed house, you're buying it as is, problems and all."

Saturday's tour group consisted mainly of newcomers to the insider-dominated world of foreclosed homes. Some were renters looking to become homebuyers, while others were owners who want to move up.

As the tour moved from house to house, the group peppered Ms. Langevin and her colleagues with questions while studying each house's listing.

"We just want to see how everything works, try to get a feel for the foreclosure process," said Jamal Lewis, who attended with his wife, Tameka.

The Lewises, federal employees who recently transferred here from the Kansas City, Kan., area, said that if nothing else, Saturday's tour gave them an overview of different North Texas neighborhoods.

"It's given us an idea of the areas more than anything, especially with me not being from Texas," Mr. Lewis said.

Others said fellow tour attendees helped them spot potential pitfalls they otherwise would have missed.

"I'm not a home expert, but some of them are really picky," said Ram Sairam, an Irving computer programmer. "They find out the problems. It's a skill I don't have. I just follow them and learn."

Mr. Sairam proved adept, however, at sizing up deals by crunching numbers on his cellphone calculator to compare each home's comparative price per square foot.

MICHAEL AINSWORTH/DMN

April Schofield (left) and Tameka and Jamal Lewis inspect a house during the tour. The homes range from extreme fixer-uppers to spotless new abodes with granite countertops.

Ms. Langevin, who is based in Coppell, said she has caught flak from one fellow agent who finds the foreclosure tour to be in poor taste. Otherwise, she said, feedback has been positive from clients and fellow agents.

"My attitude is ... let's get real estate moving," she said. "We didn't create this problem. I mean, it's here.

"I don't want my house values to drop because somebody else lost their home. The quicker we get people in them, the better it's going to be for everybody."

Ms. Newkirk agreed, saying the foreclosure home market could open more possibilities for her and her husband, who works as a receiving supervisor at a department store.

"What is the saying? One door closes for somebody, but another one opens," she said after walking through a four-bedroom home whose listing price is about $40 per square foot less than other houses in the neighborhood.

"For a home that I'd never be able to buy, but now I'd possibly be able to buy this home because it's foreclosed. ... That's the only way that I can look at it."