From 1908 to 1942, you could buy houses through Sears catalogs. Sears sold about 70,000 of them throughout the US and Canada, and you could pick from 370 different styles. The cheapest models were about $360 (in early 1900's dollars).
Although Sears houses haven't been sold for well over 80 years, some people in modern times still build homes based on the old Sears plans, since they used fairly standard materials and many models were designed to be easily constructed by the homeowner.
Here is an ad for a large, 10 room model which sold for $6500, and an actual example of one,
17 Comments
tychosmoose@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 10h
There were a lot of the smaller bungalow models of these in a neighborhood I used to live in. Still looking good after 100 years. Not bad for a flatpack house on a truck!
reddig33@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 9h
It’s a shame nobody builds bungalows anymore. It’s either high rises or Mcmansions.
grue@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 8h
It's mostly because of zoning laws. Large minimum lot sizes force the land to be expensive, which means that in order to improve it enough to make a decent profit the developer has to go multifamily (if allowed) or very large single-family. A small single-family house is only possible in the exurbs where land is still cheap.
tychosmoose@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 8h
So true. We looked hard for quality factory-built small homes, or a builder who would build us a modest bungalow. At the time the prefab options were really expensive. In part because none of the companies we found had reached economies of scale yet. And we didn't have the money to help them get there.
Likewise custom builders in our area didn't want to even quote on a 1600 ft² (15 m²) house build. They didn't see the profit in it when they could spend their time on houses twice as big or bigger.
It's been a few years since we looked. Maybe some of the prefab companies are better now? Probably not with materials costs up so much.
EnmebaraGuesser@piefed.ca · 6 pts · 10h
Indeed!
The info I saw didn't provide a date for the $360 house, but if I arbitrarily pick 1915, that's only about $12K in 2026 dollars. Granted that did not include the labor to construct the house, which had to be supplied by the homeowner or contracted for. The average US household income was about $700 per year in 1915, so even adding in the labor costs, it's still not bad in terms of hours worked to pay off a home.
tychosmoose@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 8h
It really isn't. Somebody handy and resourceful, working a single living wage job for 40 hours per week could probably do it in their spare time back then in under 6 months. Pre-cut and fitted. I wonder what the percentage was on buyer-built vs hired assembly.
ThePantser@sh.itjust.works · 13 pts · 10h
$6500 in the 1930s is $130,000 today. I would love to buy a 10 bedroom house for $130,000.
Malica@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 10h
Just stop eating avocado toast and you'll get it in no time!
lgmjon64@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 10h
I lived in a Sears home from 1920. We had a 100th birthday for it. It was surprisingly good condition. Neighborhood was rough and we ended up selling and moving about 3 years ago.
EnmebaraGuesser@piefed.ca · 2 pts · 10h
I love it!
I haven't dug into it, but apparently there are web sites which try to catalog all the ones that still exist. But it's difficult to figure out, because of look-alikes that used the same or similar plans, but without actually being Sears houses.
grue@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 8h
Is there anywhere that's digitizing and providing the actual plan sets?
EnmebaraGuesser@piefed.ca · 2 pts · 7h
Did a little more digging. I couldn't get this link to load, but wikipedia says it contains "blueprints for the Alahambra and Fairy models". Maybe you'll have better luck with the site than I did.
grue@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 7h
That link isn't to view the collection itself; it's for a reference to a physical collection you have to make an appointment and travel to the University of Maryland archives building to go look at in person.
If you click "Download PDF" all you get is the same information as on the web page but rendered as a PDF file, LOL.
EnmebaraGuesser@piefed.ca · 1 pts · 5h
Oh, bummer!
Slightly surprised they don't have it online, since it doesn't seem like it would have copyright issues after 100+ years.
grue@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4h
Somebody has to do (and pay for) the work to scan it.
EnmebaraGuesser@piefed.ca · 2 pts · 7h
Good question. When researching the post I found a bunch of sites that provide floor plans and dimensions, but haven't stumbled into construction plans.
Here's an internet archive link I still had open in my browser showing the floor plans for a bunch of them. It's 119 pages of floor plans! 1908 catalog.
https://archive.org/details/modernhomes00sear/page/22/mode/thumb
gedfromgont@piefed.ca · 2 pts · 10h
Is that Kevin's house?