Historic, Lake Access, Farmhouse, Acreage
1840 Franklin Farmhouse on One Acre Near Lake Carmi — $100,000
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 | 1840 farmhouse, 1 acre, Lake Carmi minutes away, rural Vermont character potential |
| Condition | 25% | 4 | Seller explicitly states major renovations/rehab required; no system updates cited |
| Price / Sq Ft | 15% | 10 | $105/sqft vs $250 zip median — 58% below; thin 6-comp dataset, treat directionally |
| Price vs. Market | 5% | 10 | $100K vs $474K zip median — 79% below; zip likely skewed by rural/acreage sales |
| Market Conditions | 5% | 7 | 55.7% price drops and 70-day median DOM signal buyer leverage; sale-to-list near neutral |
A hundred thousand dollars for a farmhouse built in 1840. That number is what stops you. Vermont farmhouses from that era have become increasingly hard to find at any price, let alone this one. At $105 per square foot against a zip code median closer to $250, this is priced far outside of what the surrounding market looks like, and that gap is significant enough to take seriously even accounting for the thin comparable dataset behind it.
The house itself is 950 square feet, two bedrooms, one bath, sitting on one acre in Franklin, Vermont, close to the Canadian border. Lake Carmi is minutes away. St. Albans is a short drive if you need a grocery store or a hardware run, which you will, because the seller is upfront that this place needs major renovations. Not cosmetic work. Not a paint job and new fixtures. Rehab. The listing makes no claims about systems, updates, or anything being in working order. You go in knowing it needs everything, and you budget accordingly.
What you're buying is the structure and the land and the location. An 1840 farmhouse in rural Vermont has a particular kind of weight to it, thick walls, old timber, a form that predates most of what gets built today. Whether that translates into something livable depends entirely on what you find when you open it up. Some of these old places surprise you. Some don't. There's no way to know from the listing.
The acre gives you room. The proximity to Lake Carmi gives you a reason to be here beyond the property itself. Franklin is genuinely rural, close to the Quebec border, and the market right now is soft, with a high rate of price reductions and properties sitting for over two months on average.
At $100,000, this is a project for someone who wants to do the work and end up with a piece of Vermont history on their own terms. That's the version of this that makes sense.
