For every moron that paid $500,000 for a $250,000 home there is some lucky bastid that walked away with that $250,000.
For every moron that maxed out his equity and is now upside down some $250,000 there are others who benefited from the foolishness of that moron.
The problem is that most of those "lucky bastids" took their $250k profit and used it as a down payment on a million dollar house that's now worth $500k.