Historic
1902 South Bend House with Original Woodwork, 1665 Sqft — $124,900
6
out of 10
HousesUnder150K Score
Property Merit 50% · Condition 25% · Price/Sq Ft 15% · Market 10%
| Category | Wt. | Score | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Property Merit | 50% | 7 | 1902 home, hardwood floors, original woodwork, 1665 sqft, corner fenced lot, flexible layout |
| Condition | 25% | 5 | No system dates; original character intact but age of roof/HVAC unknown; cosmetic-to-moderate risk |
| Price / Sq Ft | 15% | 9 | $75/sqft listing vs $140/sqft zip median — 46% below; 8 comps, directional signal |
| Price vs. Market | 5% | 7 | $124,900 vs $189,944 median — approximately 34% below zip median |
| Market Conditions | 5% | 6 | 36.3% price drops is a strong buyer signal; DOM 16 days and 97.6% sale-to-list are balanced |
At $75 a square foot, this house is running about half the price per square foot of what's selling in its zip code. That gap is real and worth sitting with before anything else.
What you get for that gap is a 122-year-old house on a corner fenced lot in South Bend with 1,665 square feet, original hardwood floors, and woodwork that survived the last century intact. That kind of original millwork is increasingly hard to find at any price, and here it's the dominant feature of the interior. The living room and dining room are separate, which means actual defined space rather than one undivided box.
The layout has some flexibility built into it. The first floor has a room the listing calls a den, but it could work as a bedroom if you need one down here, plus a half bath and main-floor laundry. Upstairs are three bedrooms and a full bath. The kitchen has storage. That's a lot of room for the money, and if you have a family or need space for people to spread out across different floors, the bones of this floor plan support it.
Now the honest part. The listing has no information on when the roof was replaced, how old the HVAC system is, or what condition the mechanicals are in. On a 1902 house, that's the question you have to answer before anything else. The cosmetic picture is appealing precisely because the original character was left alone. That's good. But "left alone" in an old house can mean careful preservation or it can mean deferred maintenance. You won't know which until you get an inspector through it.
The corner fenced lot adds outdoor room without asking you to live on a main artery. With price drops on over a third of active listings in this market, you have leverage to negotiate, which matters if the inspection surfaces anything significant.
At $124,900, this is a house that gives a family real square footage and a century of original detail for the price of a used car loan on top of a starter home elsewhere.
