1908 Pontiac Farmhouse on 5.1 Acres with Outbuilding — $149,900

Five acres in Livingston County for under $150,000, and there's a 116-year-old farmhouse sitting on it.

The house is a four-bedroom, one-bath, 1,648-square-foot two-story built in 1908. That age means you get the bones of a working farmhouse from a time when things were built to last. It also means you're coming into a project, not a finished product. The agent description is light on specifics, so what you can say with confidence is this: four bedrooms at this price point, on this much land, in rural Illinois is not something you run into every day.

The 5.1 acres include mature trees and an outbuilding. The outbuilding is not described in detail in the listing, but on a rural acreage like this, that kind of structure has real practical value whether you're thinking storage, equipment, animals, or a workshop. The yard is described as expansive and the tree coverage is established, which on open prairie ground takes decades to grow in.

At $91 per square foot, you are not paying for renovations someone else did to their taste. You are paying for land, space, and a structure with enough room to work with. Four bedrooms in 1,648 square feet is a workable layout, not a cramped one.

Pontiac sits along I-55, about 100 miles southwest of Chicago and 30 miles from Bloomington-Normal. It's a small city with a grain elevator skyline and a historic downtown. This address puts you outside of town on a rural road, which is the point.

The listing does not detail any recent mechanical updates, so a full inspection before moving forward would tell you what you're working with on the roof, electrical, plumbing, and HVAC. A 1908 farmhouse with no update history mentioned means you budget for work. That's already reflected in the price.

$149,900 for 5.1 acres, a four-bedroom farmhouse, and an outbuilding in central Illinois.