From 1908 to 1942, you could buy houses through Sears catalogs. Sears sold about 70,000 of them throughout the US and Canada, and you could pick from 370 different styles. The cheapest models were about $360 (in early 1900's dollars).

Although Sears houses haven't been sold for well over 80 years, some people in modern times still build homes based on the old Sears plans, since they used fairly standard materials and many models were designed to be easily constructed by the homeowner.

Here is an ad for a large, 10 room model which sold for $6500, and an actual example of one,

Sears 10 room house ad

Sears 10 room house

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[–] 11 points 2 months ago (1 child)

There were a lot of the smaller bungalow models of these in a neighborhood I used to live in. Still looking good after 100 years. Not bad for a flatpack house on a truck!

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 2 months ago

    Indeed!

    The info I saw didn't provide a date for the $360 house, but if I arbitrarily pick 1915, that's only about $12K in 2026 dollars. Granted that did not include the labor to construct the house, which had to be supplied by the homeowner or contracted for. The average US household income was about $700 per year in 1915, so even adding in the labor costs, it's still not bad in terms of hours worked to pay off a home.

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