Regarding real estate prices down here: just as with renting, it's very much a "you must be present to win" situation. A lot of the best deals are in the Mexican papers, priced in pesos, and you need fluent Spanish or to hire someone with same to help you. The stuff on MLS here is higher-end, gringo-owned mostly, priced in dollars.
You also need to know that buying a house here is a cash transaction - mortgages are nearly unheard-of. There's a glut of inventory, but at the same time many can afford to wait to get their price.
Ballpark, you can get a decent 1-2 BR condo for $90-150K, a nice house for 200K, a palace for 400K. Property taxes on a 300K place are less than $300 a year.
That said, anyone thinking of moving down here ought to rent for at least a year, and more likely forever. Appreciation is negative to minimal at the moment, construction standards are nothing like the U.S., and any problems, from title issues to cracking walls, are the buyer's to deal with, with no recourse. Plus, there are any number of things that could call you back to the U.S. on short notice, from a crime spike to a family or health care emergency to simply finding out that Mexico is just too far or too difficult culturally (life away from the tourist resorts is very, very different).
On the subject of blogs about this area, I do have one but it's all over the place in terms of content. Instead I'd recommend one by some friends of ours who live at Lake Chapala and have done a fantastic job of chronicling life both here and in fun places to visit around the country. Plus, they're way better photographers than I'll ever be!
Jim & Carole's Mexico Adventure
