Acreage, Character Home, Barn, Farmhouse, Historic
1900 Vermont Farmhouse with Barn, 1844 Sqft, Four Bedrooms — $97,900
7
out of 10
HousesUnder150K Score
Property Merit 50% · Condition 25% · Price/Sq Ft 15% · Market 10%
| Category | Wt. | Score | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Property Merit | 50% | 8 | 1900 farmhouse, 4BR, 1844 sqft, barn, 0.75 acres — strong floor qualifiers |
| Condition | 25% | 4 | Sold as-is, no system updates named, unknown condition — historic exception applies |
| Price / Sq Ft | 15% | 10 | $53/sqft vs $210 zip median — 75% below; thin 7-comp data but directional signal is strong |
| Price vs. Market | 5% | 10 | $97,900 vs $474,795 median — 79% below; median likely skewed by rural acreage/land sales |
| Market Conditions | 5% | 6 | Only 7 DOM; 55.7% price drops in zip signals soft market; sale-to-list near balanced at 98.4% |
$53 a square foot in Vermont. That number is the whole story before you even walk in the door. The zip median runs around $210 per square foot, and this place is priced at a quarter of that. Four bedrooms, 1,844 square feet, a small barn, and three quarters of an acre in Franklin for under a hundred thousand dollars.
The house is from 1900. That means 125 years of life in it, and the listing makes no claims about what's been done or updated. It's sold as-is, no systems named, no renovations mentioned. The agent description runs three sentences. What that tells you is that whoever is selling this knows the condition and isn't trying to talk around it. You'd be walking into something that needs work, probably significant work, and the price reflects exactly that.
But here's what $97,900 buys you the chance to do: take a four-bedroom New England farmhouse with a barn and bring it back. That's a project with a clear shape. The structure is 1900 construction, which in Vermont often means post and beam framing and walls built to hold up through hard winters. Whether the bones here are sound is exactly what an inspection would tell you. The price leaves enough room that even a substantial renovation budget keeps you well below what finished homes in the area trade for.
The barn is small but it's there. On 0.75 acres you have space for a garden, animals if you want them, or just room to spread out in a way that's hard to find anywhere in New England at this price. Franklin is a small rural town in the northern part of the state, close to the Canadian border. This is not a commuter suburb situation.
The condition is the real unknown. Go in clear-eyed about that and this is a lot of house and land for the money. Go in assuming it just needs paint and you'll be surprised.
