1913 Kingwood Brick with Wraparound Porch and 2,372 Sqft — $99,900

The woodwork is what gets you first. Old houses like this one either had their trim ripped out decades ago or they didn't, and this one didn't. The millwork is still there — and with bow windows pulling light into the rooms, you can see it clearly. That's the thing about 1913 construction in a brick house that's been left mostly alone: the decisions the builders made are still visible. You're not guessing at what it used to be.

The house is big. 2,372 square feet with four bedrooms, and that math works out to roughly $42 per square foot. For a brick building from 1913 with its original character intact, that number is hard to ignore. The full basement adds usable space below, and two separate staircases connect the first and second floors, which is a feature you see in houses built for a certain kind of daily life and almost never in anything built since.

The wraparound covered porch runs along the front of the house. On a street in a small town, that kind of porch means something different than it does bolted onto a subdivision house. You're at eye level with whoever's walking by. It's a functional porch, not a decorative one.

The agent notes that the house has beautiful features that need to be re-beautified, which is a way of saying there's work to do. The bones of the place clearly held up. The cosmetics are another matter, and anyone walking in should expect to put time and money in before this place looks the way it could. That's the deal here. The price reflects it.

Out back there's an A-frame outbuilding on the 0.41-acre lot. Good for storage, possibly more depending on what you need.

Kingwood is the county seat of Preston County. The house sits on East Main Street, close to local businesses and the post office. For a town of this size, being central matters.

Four bedrooms, one bath, brick construction, a porch worth sitting on, and woodwork that survived over a century. At under $100K, the question isn't whether the house has something to offer. The question is how much work you're willing to do.