Historic, Character Home, Garage, Finished Basement
1905 Bottineau Three-Level with Pass-Through Garage — $145,000
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 | 1905 three-level home, 1,756 sqft, finished basement, pass-through garage, patio |
| Condition | 25% | 6 | No system dates mentioned; charming language suggests cosmetic-ready, not renovated |
| Price / Sq Ft | 15% | 8 | Listing $83/sqft vs zip median $196/sqft — 58% below, but only 1 comp |
| Price vs. Market | 5% | 2 | $145K vs $429K zip median — distorted by likely acreage/rural sales mix |
| Market Conditions | 5% | 6 | DOM 86 days, 49.5% price drops positive signal; sale-to-list 115% tempers slightly |
The pass-through garage is the first thing worth pausing on. Doors on both the front and back, so you can pull in from the street and drive straight through to the backyard. That is a genuinely useful feature, not a throwaway detail, and it is the kind of thing you build a workflow around if you actually use it.
The house itself is 120 years old and three levels tall, which in Bottineau at $145,000 gets you 1,756 square feet spread across a main floor, an upper floor, and a finished basement. The main level holds a living room, kitchen, dining area, one bedroom, and a full bath. Upstairs has a second bedroom plus enough room to use as a family room, office, or game room, depending on what your life actually requires. The basement puts the primary bedroom down there along with the second bathroom, laundry, mechanical room, and storage. Privacy from the rest of the house, if you want it.
The lot has mature trees and established landscaping. There is a patio off the dining room that opens to the backyard.
The condition score is the thing to hold onto here. The agent description leans on language like "charming" without mentioning a single system date, no roof, no furnace, no water heater. A 1905 house without disclosed system updates is a house where you go in with eyes open and a budget for the unknown. That is the real question before anything else.
The price per square foot comes in at $83, against a zip median of $196. That gap is partly a data issue, one comp and a market skewed by rural and acreage sales, but the absolute number is still low for what you get in terms of size and layout. The house has been on the market 86 days.
For someone willing to do the homework on systems and absorb what a pre-WWI house might need, the square footage, the three-level layout, and the garage make a case that $145,000 leaves room to work with.
