1955 Raymond Cottage with Willapa River Views and 4 Extra Lots — $137,500
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 | River views, 4 bonus lots, wood stove, covered patio; only 784 sqft limits merit |
| Condition | 25% | 4 | Power and water must be re-established; as-is language; no system dates given |
| Price / Sq Ft | 15% | 5 | Listing $175/sqft vs zip median $164/sqft — 7% above median; 8 thin comps |
| Price vs. Market | 5% | 8 | $137,500 vs $289,000 median — ~52% below zip median; multi-parcel skews comparison |
| Market Conditions | 5% | 7 | DOM 44 median vs 16 listed; sale-to-list 91.2%; 41.5% price drops — clear buyer's market |
The house itself is small. 784 square feet, two bedrooms, one bath, built in 1955. That part you should know going in. The kitchen is described as large relative to the rest of it, which is probably true and also puts the scale of this thing in perspective. A freestanding wood stove in the living room, a fenced backyard, a covered patio. The bones of a modest little place that someone lived in for a long time and then stopped living in.
What stops you here is the land. This listing includes five parcels total — the house lot plus four additional lots to the left of it. On the Willapa River. With unobstructed views. That is a different conversation than a 784-square-foot cottage in Raymond, Washington.
Those extra lots give you real options. You could expand the existing house onto the adjacent land. You could build a separate structure, a shop, a second home, whatever the zoning allows. You could hold the extra parcels and do nothing with them for now. The point is that you are buying more than a small house. You are buying the ability to figure out what you actually want to do with a piece of riverfront land over time.
The condition is the honest complication here. Power and water need to be re-established. The listing says so directly and asks buyers to verify everything to their own satisfaction. There are no dates on any systems, no information on what was done or when. This is an as-is situation, and the gap between what it costs to bring utilities back online and what you expected to spend is real money you need to price in before you get too attached to $137,500.
The market in this zip code is running heavy on price drops right now, 41.5% of active listings have cut their price, and sale-to-list ratios are sitting around 91%. That context matters when you are talking to a seller about what this property is actually worth in its current state. There is room to negotiate here in a way that a tighter market would not give you. The land along the river is what makes the question worth asking.
