What would happen if the seller emailed, wanting their house featured, even if someone “claimed” it? What seller wouldn’t want a bidding war?
If there isn’t some kind of service providing SEO for home sales, someone could make money starting one.
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Character is overrated
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Most of the ones I’ve looked at are under $100K, with ones over that tending to be noted as “save this house” instead of under the price.
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There are several churches:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn6wcS-gZXb/
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bncf0chgf_9/
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn6BiyGg91j/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnWZH69ABXt/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnTiHRbg3gU/
Several crazy houses, like this guy:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BoHOaWzgvcy/
Or this one:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bnon8q8BJbw/
I wonder what the inside looks like on this one:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnoVmdahNUi/
And at least ONE house where Frank Lloyd Wright was a consultant:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BoPnHu3A8R8/
A house in Tuscany - ITALY - for $40,000 from 1645!!!:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bni9VwIgGUS/
The last pic has a shot of the corner stone that says “children’s home” - so haunted!
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnBbLplgF6j/
Also haunted (hearth and home engraving gives that away)!
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bm_S43tAAKa/
There went my sunday afternoon! 
ETA - another FLW house:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BjzVSW6ggWe/
MORE ETA - anyone want to live in a former courthouse/jail in Canada:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bh881jTgsEV/
IL former hospital (haunted):
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bh6swOzgmAI/
A mining town!!!
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I want this MCM house so bad I could shit. That den is wonderful. But, yeah, I’m gonna move north of the Texas panhandle? Not in this lifetime. But, it’s so stunning!
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I wonder if there are more Mid-century moderns or more victorian styles on the list overall. Some of them (both kinds) are cheap as hell, but need a ton of work. I’d guess that the MCMs are more likely to have been kept up, since they’re younger houses…
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Wow. Brings back memories. That’s a classy version of my long dead grandmother’s house(no fire place) . I’ve always wanted a pink tile bathroom and that floor tile, but did not have the kahunas to put it in a modern house.
Hmm, I’ve often thought it would be neat to live in a converted church. Who wants to go in on one with me and convert it into condos? (Although dividing up the space might ruin one of the most attractive elements of a converted church - having the nave as a big, open living space that’s impossible to heat and… you know what? Never mind.)
There are whole villages worth of old buildings in Italy being given away by the government to those who will fix them up, just to keep smaller towns from being depopulated and falling into ruins.
(E.g. Italian Town Sells Free Homes to Lure Residents - Business Insider )
I keep thinking of the house I grew up in, which my parents bought for $22K around 1970. It was a tear-down mid-19th century house on a nice bit of land, and they spent the next 30+ years rebuilding it.
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I remember hearing a couple of stories of the depopulation of small towns in europe, and how it relates to the refugee crisis - in Germany, they tend to encourage refugees to move out into these small towns. I think I remember one village in Spain being repopulated by refugees - seems like a great solution to both problems, to me, at least.
[ETA] I think I remember a similar story about rural Vermont here in the states as well…
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So in winter terms, that’s cold, colder, and cold. I knew there had to be a catch somewhere! 
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I’d have to cross this with something like HGTV’s My Lottery Dream Home, right after I start buying tickets.
I looked up the U.S. process for refugee resettlement:
and from it, this:
This also interested me:
I wanted to understand one of the drivers behind how cities/towns decline and–hopefully–revitalize. Folks already in the U.S. who are looking for affordable housing may be facing the same options as resettled refugees, minus the language (and probably literacy) barrier.
I can see cheap unhaunted old houses solving a lot of problems. I salute the compromises, thrift and industry that humans must commit and recommit to daily to make a living in um yeah challenging conditions.
ETA: grammar again, argh
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But you have still got the land for next to nothing
Which is next to its value. Unless you are a developer specializing in tear downs.
I lived in a town with a bunch of worlds fair houses that were moved there on barges in the 1950s, all on beautiful but eroding lakefront lots. Most have been empty and condemned despite a deal where you can basically get one for free if you agree to fix it up to historical standards.
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Yeah, refugees have been repopulating some Italian towns as well, in some cases for decades:
… but unfortunately they’re coming into conflict with the new xenophobic national government:
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The fact that cool old houses sell for cheap in out of the way places is not really new info for a lot of us, I’m sure. I’ve been fantasizing about farmhouses in Vermont for years, thanks to craigslist.
Basically, unless I A.) have the money to fix up one of these places, and B.) don’t have to worry about commuting to my job, then I’d already have grabbed one.
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Can you promise that it won’t happen again though?
This town is on my side of the ATL. This is a wonderful community that is incredibly diverse. I can see that diversity reflected in my class make up at GSU.
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I’ve always fantasized about living in an old church (thank Arlo Guthrie for that), but I can’t imagine how I would heat a huge space like that up here in the cold Northeast without going broke or always hovering around 50 degrees in the winter.
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Wood-burning/pellet stove? I’ve always thought the converted church/school/fire depot/shopping mall idea would be pretty cool, but I’d stick to less acreage.
