Historic, Garage, Finished Basement, Character Home
1930 Cumberland Cottage with Workshop, Drive-In Basement, and Two Rear Decks — $149,900
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 | 1930 cottage, covered porch, two rear decks, workshop, drive-in basement garage, layout flexibility |
| Condition | 25% | 7 | Described as move-in ready; no system dates given, no major red flags noted |
| Price / Sq Ft | 15% | 5 | Listing $129/sqft vs zip median $104/sqft — 24% above median; thin 8-comp dataset |
| Price vs. Market | 5% | 5 | $149,900 vs $184,920 median — approximately 19% below zip median |
| Market Conditions | 5% | 6 | 38.1% price drops is strong buyer signal; DOM 57 days, sale-to-list 97.8% balanced |
The basement alone is worth understanding before you look at anything else. A drive-in garage built into the foundation, with a dedicated workshop beside it and laundry down there too. That is a lot of usable space that does not eat into the living area above it. For someone who works on things, keeps tools, or just needs room to store more than a car, that lower level solves real problems.
The house itself is a 1930 cottage, 1,161 square feet on the main floors, two bedrooms and one bath. The layout has some flexibility baked in: there is a second main-floor room currently used as a living space that could go back to being a bedroom, and the upstairs bedroom is large enough to split into two if you needed the third. Whether either conversion makes sense depends on the actual dimensions and your situation, but the agent flags it and it is worth asking about when you walk through.
The front porch is covered, which on a 1930 cottage tends to mean it has some depth and presence, not just a stoop. Two rear decks and a patio out back give you multiple spots outside depending on what you need from them.
At $149,900, the house is about 19 percent below the zip code's median sale price, which on its face sounds like a deal. The per-square-foot number tells a slightly different story: $129 against a zip median of $104, so the house is priced above the local average by square foot. The dataset is thin, eight comps, so neither figure carries much weight on its own. What is clear is that the market in this area has seen strong price reductions lately, around 38 percent of listings have dropped, and this one has been sitting for 57 days. There may be room to negotiate.
No system dates are listed. Age of mechanicals matters on a 1930 house and the listing does not say, so that conversation needs to happen before you get attached to anything.
What $149,900 gets you here is a pre-war cottage with real outdoor space, a workshop basement with drive-in access, and a layout that can flex as your needs change. That is a specific combination that is hard to assemble from newer construction at this price.
