So You Can’t Afford a House: Cinco

Well, just to prove that yesterday’s cheap house wasn’t a one-off, here’s another house for around the same price, and with a similar look out below pricing pedigree. Currently priced at (don’t blink) $64,900, it’s a 3-bed, 2-bath ramshackle wonder in Skowhegan, Maine.

The house is smaller than yesterday’s hovel, but it does have a garage/barn thing to its credit. The denizens have worked their usual plastic magic on the exterior, and put tiny windows here and there where the big Victorian sashes used to reside, but the place isn’t falling down or anything. They’ve also embraced the Welcome to Costco, I love you ethos, and tested themselves against the how many dogs do I need to hold my own against this many cats conundrum, but the place would be habitable if they disinhabited it.

Skowhegan is a less desirable exurb than yesterday’s Gardiner example, but just. It’s bigger, with 8,600 overweight Maine starvelings roaming its streets. It has a real downtown lined with more shops than empty storefronts. You could live in Skowhegan, and say you like it, and some people might believe you.

My kids had a lot to do with Skowhegan when they were younger. The town punches above its weight class for civic functions. Our boys performed at the Opera House, and for the River Fest, and at the Pickup Cafe, and at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. There are plenty of nice people in Skowhegan. You could add or subtract from the total if you bought this house.

The house has also descended into the unmortgageable world, and it shows in the price history:

I can smell it on the breeze. Enter the downscale housing market now, or wait forever for first-rate stuff to plunge in price. Good luck with that.