I saw one of these Sears kit houses on This Old House last week. It was built around 1900 in a Boston, MA suburb and cost less than a thousand dollars at that time. The house was well built and in very good condition despite it’s age. It put the particle board palaces they build in my area to shame.
Ed
April 9, 2016 9:38 am
Paid for in specie when the ad was new, it would have taken 204 double eagle 20s.
Bought today with the same number of double eagles it would be $258,672. Still a bargain.
Anonymous
April 9, 2016 10:50 am
You can still build your home from construction packages that include everything as well as the plans, there are several companies that supply them and Home Depot as well did as of a few years ago (don’t know if they still do or not).
This makes sense if you are of a handy nature and anything but upper income since your tale home wages are unlikely to exceed the sweat equity involved in taking a year off to do it and you don’t have to pay income tax and other wage taxes on it.
Suzanna
April 9, 2016 11:17 am
1550 sq. foot at $100/sq. foot = $155.K
1550 sq. foot at $200/sq. foot = $310.K
California? San Fransisco? = $…a million or two?
Depends where you build it.
Admin, thanks for the post.
Chicago999444
April 9, 2016 11:42 am
There are quite a few of these Sears kit homes around Chicago, and a number of them are exactly like this one and are located in neighborhoods like Ravenswood and Old Irving Park, which are right next to each other. Most of the owners are not aware that the grand old 9 or 12 room Victorian manses they are paying anywhere from $800K to $2M for, are Sears kit houses. They really are wonderful old houses, and very coveted in this city. They are mostly frame, having been built in neighborhoods that had not yet been annexed to Chicago, which required masonry construction after the Great Fire.
Stucky
April 9, 2016 11:57 am
The charming little home below was directly across the street from the very first home I ever bought (in Ft Wayne).
The owners were our age. They said records show that it was a Sears home. Original cost about $700. Built in the 1920s. I’ve been in it …. remarkable quality and workmanship.
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IndenturedServant
April 9, 2016 2:48 pm
I’ve seen several of these Sears homes. The biggest was in a tiny town called Horatio, SC where I used to live and where Smokey used to spend summers. It was owned by the Lenoir family who still run a little country store there that was in business prior to the American Revolution. It would be awesome to see it survive after the next American Revolution.
David
April 9, 2016 5:34 pm
Only one bathroom for the 4 bedrooms, possible with sons, throw a daughter in the mix and instant Armageddon.
Westcoaster
April 9, 2016 8:19 pm
Jim Walter Homes used to build “shell” homes on your lot and you could finish the interior yourself. They were very popular with the gentry in the MidWest back in the 50’s & 60’s.
Chicago999444
April 10, 2016 7:51 am
I knew a woman in the 80s, who bought a “shell” home, which turned out to be the worst deal of her life. She was driven into insolvency and insanity, by dealing with all the contractors she had to hire to finish off the interior, who installed the furnace duct-work all wrong, installed inadequate wiring that did not meet codes, built walls and floors that had an inch of separation between them,and in general, totally fucked up the job to the tune of about $75K worth of sub-par, shoddy work that needed to be done over for the house to be safe to occupy. My mother blamed that house for the poor woman’s early death from a stroke at age 47.
Don’t do this- buy a “shell” and build out the interior yourself- unless you either can do the work yourself, or have experience dealing with contractors and builders. I hate to flame an entire industry, and I know there are many good contractors out there because I’ve been lucky enough to have a few to do things like rebuild ceilings, install a 240v cable in the kitchen, and install a commercial hot water heater in my condo building. But the sorry truth is that the building industry is crawling with shysters and incompetents, who will charge you tens of thousands of dollars for extremely shoddy, unsafe work that has to be done over, or disappear with your down payment and not do the work at all, or fail to get the required permits, or slap a lien on your property after you’ve paid for the work. The more complex your project, the better your chances of being badly burned, and it will be very difficult to get remediation because the laws tend to favor the contractors. Everyone I know who has had a house built from the ground up, or has had extensive renovations done, has horror stories to tell. One guy had a house built down in southeast MO, who fortunately knew a great deal about construction and knew enough to specify every single component right down to the size of screws and nails. He also got off his local trucking job early enough in the day to go to the site and check the work before the workers covered it up, and every day he found short -cuts and violations.
I saw one of these Sears kit houses on This Old House last week. It was built around 1900 in a Boston, MA suburb and cost less than a thousand dollars at that time. The house was well built and in very good condition despite it’s age. It put the particle board palaces they build in my area to shame.
Paid for in specie when the ad was new, it would have taken 204 double eagle 20s.
Bought today with the same number of double eagles it would be $258,672. Still a bargain.
You can still build your home from construction packages that include everything as well as the plans, there are several companies that supply them and Home Depot as well did as of a few years ago (don’t know if they still do or not).
This makes sense if you are of a handy nature and anything but upper income since your tale home wages are unlikely to exceed the sweat equity involved in taking a year off to do it and you don’t have to pay income tax and other wage taxes on it.
1550 sq. foot at $100/sq. foot = $155.K
1550 sq. foot at $200/sq. foot = $310.K
California? San Fransisco? = $…a million or two?
Depends where you build it.
Admin, thanks for the post.
There are quite a few of these Sears kit homes around Chicago, and a number of them are exactly like this one and are located in neighborhoods like Ravenswood and Old Irving Park, which are right next to each other. Most of the owners are not aware that the grand old 9 or 12 room Victorian manses they are paying anywhere from $800K to $2M for, are Sears kit houses. They really are wonderful old houses, and very coveted in this city. They are mostly frame, having been built in neighborhoods that had not yet been annexed to Chicago, which required masonry construction after the Great Fire.
The charming little home below was directly across the street from the very first home I ever bought (in Ft Wayne).
The owners were our age. They said records show that it was a Sears home. Original cost about $700. Built in the 1920s. I’ve been in it …. remarkable quality and workmanship.
[img
[/img]
I’ve seen several of these Sears homes. The biggest was in a tiny town called Horatio, SC where I used to live and where Smokey used to spend summers. It was owned by the Lenoir family who still run a little country store there that was in business prior to the American Revolution. It would be awesome to see it survive after the next American Revolution.
Only one bathroom for the 4 bedrooms, possible with sons, throw a daughter in the mix and instant Armageddon.
Jim Walter Homes used to build “shell” homes on your lot and you could finish the interior yourself. They were very popular with the gentry in the MidWest back in the 50’s & 60’s.
I knew a woman in the 80s, who bought a “shell” home, which turned out to be the worst deal of her life. She was driven into insolvency and insanity, by dealing with all the contractors she had to hire to finish off the interior, who installed the furnace duct-work all wrong, installed inadequate wiring that did not meet codes, built walls and floors that had an inch of separation between them,and in general, totally fucked up the job to the tune of about $75K worth of sub-par, shoddy work that needed to be done over for the house to be safe to occupy. My mother blamed that house for the poor woman’s early death from a stroke at age 47.
Don’t do this- buy a “shell” and build out the interior yourself- unless you either can do the work yourself, or have experience dealing with contractors and builders. I hate to flame an entire industry, and I know there are many good contractors out there because I’ve been lucky enough to have a few to do things like rebuild ceilings, install a 240v cable in the kitchen, and install a commercial hot water heater in my condo building. But the sorry truth is that the building industry is crawling with shysters and incompetents, who will charge you tens of thousands of dollars for extremely shoddy, unsafe work that has to be done over, or disappear with your down payment and not do the work at all, or fail to get the required permits, or slap a lien on your property after you’ve paid for the work. The more complex your project, the better your chances of being badly burned, and it will be very difficult to get remediation because the laws tend to favor the contractors. Everyone I know who has had a house built from the ground up, or has had extensive renovations done, has horror stories to tell. One guy had a house built down in southeast MO, who fortunately knew a great deal about construction and knew enough to specify every single component right down to the size of screws and nails. He also got off his local trucking job early enough in the day to go to the site and check the work before the workers covered it up, and every day he found short -cuts and violations.