Historic, Finished Basement
1900 Milbank Home, 3,135 Square Feet, Open Staircase and Built-Ins — $147,000
7
out of 10
HousesUnder150K Score
Property Merit 50% · Condition 25% · Price/Sq Ft 15% · Market 10%
| Category | Wt. | Score | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Property Merit | 50% | 8 | 1900 home, 3,135 sqft, 4 beds, open staircase, built-ins, attic bonus space |
| Condition | 25% | 6 | Dry basement noted; no system dates (roof/HVAC/windows) — age requires assumption of updates needed |
| Price / Sq Ft | 15% | 10 | $47/sqft vs $94 zip median — 50% below; thin 6-comp dataset but directionally strong |
| Price vs. Market | 5% | 7 | $147K vs $210,938 zip median — 30% below, qualifies as meaningful discount |
| Market Conditions | 5% | 6 | DOM 46 vs median 34; sale-to-list 93.8%, price drops 15.8% — mild buyer's advantage |
The math here is what stops you first. At $147,000, you are buying 3,135 square feet of a 125-year-old house for $47 per square foot. The zip median runs around $94. That is not a rounding error — it is a fundamentally different kind of purchase than anything else in this price range in Milbank.
The house is big. Not sprawling-suburban big, but old-house big, where rooms had actual dimensions and walls had actual weight. Main floor has a front porch, a large living room, a dining room large enough to mean something, and a kitchen with access to the backyard. There is also a bonus room with laundry and a full bathroom on the main level. Upstairs: four large bedrooms, a second full bathroom, and a staircase that the listing specifically calls out as open, which in a house this age usually means something worth seeing. The built-ins in the dining room are the kind of detail that gets stripped out of old houses more often than it survives. These survived.
Above the bedrooms there is attic space with room to do something with. Below everything is a basement the listing describes as dry, which in a home this old is a meaningful data point. How meaningful depends on what you find when you look closely.
That is where the honest part comes in. No roof date, no HVAC information, no window age. A 1900 house with no system history disclosed means you are going in with your eyes open and a contractor in tow. The price accounts for that. Thirty percent below the zip median on a house this size suggests the seller and the market already understand there is work here.
What $147,000 gets you, practically, is four bedrooms, room for a full family, an attic that could become a fifth room or a studio, a dry basement with real square footage, and a house with an actual shape to it. If you want space and do not mind putting work into something old, this is one of the more direct ways to get it in this market.
