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In 1908, Sears added a new article to its extensive catalog. Customers who have turned to page 596 of catalog no. 177 were greeted by a drawing of a house.
The house had two floors, nine rooms and gabled roofs. The price was $ 1,700, or about $ 47,000 in 2018 dollars.
From 1908 to 1940, the Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog sold mail-order houses as part of its Sears Modern Home program, reported the 99% Invisible podcast in September. Sears has proposed a separate catalog to browse through these "kit kits," which she says could be assembled by the buyer in less than 90 days. Ordering one was as simple as filling out a form, sending a check and waiting for your building materials to arrive a few weeks later.
"The sawing and wood processing that goes into these buildings are cut to size by improved machines, which allows for perfectly real cuts and tabs, much better than manual work," says a page from 1918 catalog. "YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TALER, NO MEASURE TO DO – YOU SIMILY NAIL TOGETHER."
Over the next 30 years or so, Sears sold up to 75,000 of these mail-order houses in 447 different styles, transforming homeownership into an achievable American ideal. The program grew in popularity after the First World War, as veterans returned to the states and demand for housing increased.
Sears went bankrupt on October 15, 2018 and announced the closure of nearly 200 stores.
Sears' "Honor Bilt" houses, its highest quality kit houses, have come up with ambitious names like "Americus", "Beaumont", "Honor" and "Starlight". Sears encouraged customers to think of everything they could buy to fill their new home – clothing, musical instruments and books – from the Sears catalog, of course.
Honor ($ 4,711)
Courtesy of HathiTrust
The Alhambra ($ 4,006)
Courtesy of HathiTrust
The Westly ($ 3,729)
Courtesy of HathiTrust
Argyle ($ 3,047)
Courtesy of HathiTrust
The company has also proposed a "simple payment plan" with monthly or semi-annual payments. A typical Sears loan lasts five years and bears interest at 6% but can be extended up to 15 years. The mortgage application was only half a page.
Sears' low prices and affordability allow people who have never thought of buying a home – immigrants, single women and minorities – to become homeowners in America. Sears has also helped popularize modern conveniences such as central heating, electricity and indoor plumbing. In 1923, Sears expanded to farm buildings and prefabricated barns.
The Great Depression then erupted and the mail-order bubble burst, forcing Sears to exclude tens of thousands of homes sold to its customers. In 1934 alone, the company sold $ 11 million worth of mortgages. In 1940 Sears closed his unit of modern homes. Many of the remaining homes have been renovated without any recognition, demolished or abandoned.
The Sears catalog houses that remain today are an object of fascination for collectors and kit home hunters who scour the US looking for mail order houses sold by Sears and a handful of 39, other companies. In 2016, a "Martha Washington" colonial style home located in Chevy Chase, Maryland, from a 1920s Sears catalog, sold for more than a million dollars ( paywall). Its original price? $ 3,727.
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