Historic, Craftsman, Character Home
1905 De Smet Home, 4,250 Sqft with Grand Staircase and 1,600 Sqft Workshop — $150,000
7
out of 10
HousesUnder150K Score
Property Merit 50% · Condition 25% · Price/Sq Ft 15% · Market 10%
| Category | Wt. | Score | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Property Merit | 50% | 9 | 1905 home, 4,250 sqft, grand staircase, 1,600+ sqft workshop, abundant windows |
| Condition | 25% | 6 | Pre-1920 with character intact; no system dates named — unknown mechanicals |
| Price / Sq Ft | 15% | 10 | $35/sqft listing vs $98/sqft zip median — 64% below; 3 comps, directional signal |
| Price vs. Market | 5% | 8 | $150K vs $289K zip median — 48% below; 1 sale/month, thin market caveat applies |
| Market Conditions | 5% | 8 | 89.1% sale-to-list, 50% price drops, DOM 64 — strong buyer's market signals |
At $35 a square foot, this house is priced below what you'd pay to build a storage unit. That's the number that stops you. In De Smet, where the zip median runs around $98 per square foot, a 4,250-square-foot 1905 house for $150,000 is the kind of thing that makes you do the math twice.
The house is big. Genuinely big. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a second-floor family room, and a grand staircase that tells you immediately this was built in an era when stairs were meant to be noticed. Abundant windows throughout, which on a house this size means the rooms read light rather than heavy. The period craftsmanship is intact, at least visually — the bones of a 1905 home that still looks like a 1905 home, not one that's been renovated into something generic.
The attached workshop is 1,600 square feet. That's not a shed or a garage with ambitions. That's a serious outbuilding connected to the house, large enough for a proper woodshop, a mechanic's workspace, a game room, or whatever a person actually needs room to do. For someone who works with their hands or runs a small business out of home, that space alone is worth stopping for.
Here's the honest part: this house is 120 years old and the listing names no dates on mechanicals. No mention of when the roof was done, the furnace, the electrical, the plumbing. On a house this age, that's a real question. A pre-purchase inspection needs to go deep, and you should budget for the possibility that major systems are at or past their useful life. The market in De Smet is slow, around one sale per month, which means the price signal is directional but thin.
What $150,000 buys you here is a large, historic house with period character still in it and a workshop most hobbyists or tradespeople would build from scratch if they could. The cost of getting the mechanicals right is the variable. The price leaves room to find out.
