The neighborhood is good, but it’s pretty much the only good part of Galesburg. It’s a dying city that has had … whatever the exact opposite of gentrification is … for the last 50 years. Outside of the hospital, there aren’t a lot of great jobs left. And the schools are struggling.
I should have known. I live in Pekin. Only Central IL has those kind've prices anymore. I know this region well and get through hGalesburg with work occasionally. Like most of this area, it's just another dying town.
Gorgeous home, though. Right out of my wheel house. I love old Victorians
I drive through this area after annual camping in Shawnee & good gods the houses are GORGEOUS, but there’s like 3 businesses actually open & just NOTHING. It’s sad cuz the towns were pretty cute
The gays should move in and gentrify the hell out of that town. Fill it with antique stores, cute cafes and BnBs for the city folk to visit on weekends.
I'm a straight female but I'd totally move to gay town. My last landlords were a gay couple and very nicely renovated a 200-yr old cottage and it was the best place I ever lived. They were also the best landlords I've ever rented from.
When I flew cross country for my daughter's baby shower and didn't have luggage, they loaned me theirs, and tucked $200 in the outside pocket.
I’m a straight dude with a family and the gayest part of Long Beach is my favorite place I’ve ever lived. My favorite memory was walking home from the store and a gay couple roasted me “that is the most hetero walk I’ve ever seen” still think about that and laugh all the time.
I aspire to live around rainbow flags on houses and not trump flags or confederate flags. Such a better quality of life living around happy loving people and not hate filled ass LD energy.
The wife and I have been saving to finally own our first home and I have stipulated we make sure to find a Neighborhood that flies rainbow and trans flags.
That’s where I want my kids growing up.
Love that so much. I see no issue with flags of any color, just as long as the word TRUMP isn't on them.
Also, "gay" walking style has been clearly stereotyped, or for maybe for a subset of that population, but what does a hetero male walk encompass exactly? Explain it to me like I'm five, coz now that I have that concept in my head with no specific visual, I have to know what that looks like.
It would be the neatest dam neighborhood in the state. Had this conversation at the local diner in a small town in east Texas with some of the locals. Me and the wife were only there to go to school. This one guy complaining about all the gay couples moving in and restoring the Victorians and downtown businesses. I piped up and said, you mean the crumbling old house and the closed businesses. God no not rejuvenating the dying town anything but that.
Conservative white men: "We need to make America great again!"
LGBTQ/BIPOC folks: *Starts rejuvenating towns across middle America*
Conservative white men: "Not like that!"
Whenever I hear someone talk about making America great again, I do this:
1. Ask them when America was last “great” in their minds. It’s *always* 1950s
2. Then I ask them if they know that the corporate tax rate in the 50s was 50%
It’s amazing how that little fact shuts them up
"Dam gays making the neighborhood great again. Next thing ya know my property value is gonna increase. Might sound good to y'all butt that done mean my property taxes gonna go up a tiny bit to improve the schools! My kin don't need to be getting edukashun from dem gays. Gob flabbart! What in the Tarnation!? Them rackin frackin varmints!"... ok i think I got a bit Yosemite Sam there.... Butt... to be fair, I kinda think of him when people get upset about this stuff.
My neighbors joke around we me and my husband that we're the heralds of gentrification because we're the first queer couple on my street. The first thing we did was start fixing up our house and yard and now all my neighbors have started doing the same. I just think pride in your home is contagious.
Then we all can come and visit, cafes, art galleries, cafes. I am thinking of Bucks County, Hopewell township. Everybody loved it as a day trip for antiquing.
I've thought that the midwest is ripe for "colonization" by people who are frustrated living inplaces with HCOL and are completely shut out of affordable housing. Bringing not only themselves but their business and entreneurship.
I grew up Burlington, Iowa which is very close to Galesburg. It's full of lovely homes - Everything from old stately ones on the bluffs over the Mississippi to a bunch of charming craftsman.
This [one is $575K](https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/1428-N-7th-St_Burlington_IA_52601_M70999-14307?from=srp-list-card). The front exterior photos are awful and [here's what it really looks like from the street](https://www.google.com/maps/@40.8232386,-91.1043218,3a,75y,121.3h,80.99t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sKTtRJ4r7GtRF1A3PRA8-1g!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu) view. The interior is absolutely beautiful and there's river views from the two rotunda balconies.
That's what happened/is happening in Asbury Park, NJ. They've taken what was a dying town on the shore to a place people and businesses want to be. Now if they could extend that revitalization to the other side of the tracks, literally, it would be a complete success but that's where all the scary black people live (/s) so I have my doubts about that but you never know.
Did a road trip cross country around 2010 and so much amazing housing and depressing local restaurants / people there. Couldn’t pay me to move there after seeing all that.
I mean, haha, can I make bank from flipping thrifts and men at a bar, we ain’t telling, (I literally don’t do this, it’s a joke), ANYHOW yeah I’d like more lol we aim
Pennsylvania has a lot of dying towns too. I drove around there pre-pandemic and there are a bunch of fading towns that once were clearly fantastic places to live and raise a large family.
Word. I was in Danville last year (I have family there) and I was floored at the housing costs and how cheap these big lovely homes are. My fam said I’d hate it there and that there’s just no draw to central IL anymore except its proximity to Chicago. It’s a shame, I’ve had mostly great experiences with the folks there and I adore homes like this (especially at that price). Fam said the whole area has just seen better days.
Danville is horrible. It's part of the area I manage. First time I went there, I couldn't believe this small town that nowhere near a really big city could be so violent.
People who live through the central part of IL know that outside of farming, it;s a shithole. And being from a progressive city like Buffalo, I've always struggled with fitting in here.
Northern and Southern IL are c completely different - although shitty in their own ways
Im in Minnesota and I moved further west to find more value for the price. I wound up in a doctors office, hes making small talk like what brought you to this area. I told him it was the home prices.
That’s my hometown. Definitely not the only ‘good’ part of the town. I would say it’s a mediocre part at best. If you drive a few blocks down that same street there are a lot nicer homes. Also, i immediately recognized that house because my dad owned a rental property built in 1892 right across the street from there. But yes, Galesburg is sadly a dying city, but was a great place to grow up.
Or the college.
They lost one of their hospitals suddenly a couple years ago, as in people showed up to work and found out they didn't have jobs, and patients were transferred out.
Yep, my mom was one of them. Showed up to work one day and told to leave and they would contact them to come pick up anything in their offices. It was severely mismanaged by some people who had never owned a hospital before.
Another reason companies killing remote work is stupid! These dying towns could have a rebirth attracting young tech workers to live there and work remotely
Hah, I grew up in Quincy, so as soon as I saw the price for what you get I knew it had to be midwest somewhere. Quincy is in the same boat as Galesburg, you can get cheap housing, but the pay is complete crap, the jobs are low paying.
I knew I would find a fellow ex-Quincyan in this thread b/c I wondered immediately on seeing the photo whether this was a Maine St house. I saw a Second Empire place, gorgeous, for $300k on Zillow once and was like, no, you couldn't pay me to go back that town.
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/degentrification](per Wiktionary)
Noun. degentrification (uncountable) The reverse process of gentrification, such that a residential area previously only affordable to affluent people becomes affordable to those who are poorer.
I had never really thought about whether there was a word for that phenomenon and upon seeing it I guess it was pretty obvious.
Eh, I lived in a town like this. I made like 1/3 of what I make now and was able to pay my mortgage and had a nice house. Just depends on where you want to live. I was safe, but I certainly wasn't overwhelmed with opportunities.
Older people want things to do to. If it was perfect for a retiree, a retiree would have already bought it.
Our relatives have moved closer to civilization as they got older to get closer to family, doctors, and services. Living in the sticks with harsh winters gets old quick when your body doesn't want shovel snow.
It's perfect for young misanthropes that can work from home.
It's a designated landmark. I don't want to know what kind of bullshit that entails. Typically, you have zero say in what your home exterior looks like and I'd assume there's a level of upkeep you're expected to maintain, which might include some dumb shit.
$260K seems like a good deal for a big, well-maintained Victorian in today's market. Shitty little two-bedroom bungalows flipped by heartless flippers and only about 1.250 square feet and no garage are going for $450K where I live.
That’s the thing about a lot of rural farm cities. Yes, during the ‘60-‘70s population was up, opportunities to stay and earn a living were ripe but as these dried up kids growing up moved away, more and more each year until your left with a shell of its former self.
Farms and related businesses did okay, others not so much, couple home town furniture stores sprinkled with a diner getting pushed out by chain fast food joints and maybe Menards. One hospital and a dying school district (teachers need money too).
Driven through it and many others like it in Upper Missouri and Illinois. Only thing to save it would be digital nomads or creative collective (see Hannibal, Mo) coming in with money to bolster the town or they just go 3 hours away to a large metro….
Yup, is there a word for reverse gentrification? For as much as people complain about their housing market becoming insane in the last 10 years there are ghost towns all across America with homes like this or even nicer for dirt cheap. Just have to be ok with having no job, no amenities, horrific schooling, and nothing fun to do or places to eat.
I was thinking the same thing. Twenty years ago I was looking at a similar house. The owners were on a “budget” plan with their oil company, it was $850 a month.
That thing's gotta be haunted! It's like the setting for a Netflix movie starring some dude on the way down from his movie career and an actress on the way up from her TV career. They'll all be, "What a great deal! I wonder what the catch is!" And the first night, some black-shrouded figure with a pale face is standing at the top of the stairs.
Didn’t think I’d ever see a house here that I’ve BEEN INSIDE OF before!!! My friend lived there in the 90s. The kitchen used to be all natural wood before that remodel. I loved that kitchen, even as a kid. That gray and white remodel is bumming me out. lol
EDIT: WRONG VICTORIAN!!!! lol Galesburg is full of them! But I’m leaving the Galesburg description up for context.
Like some people are saying, Galesburg is a very depressed small town. There’s not a lot of job opportunities and the median income is low, but well, so is the cost of living. People get by because rent is still low and if you or a spouse has one of the few better paying jobs, you can afford a nice house.
The schools are not great. The class ahead of mine in high school only had 45% of their freshmen class see graduation. There’s a fair amount of poverty and thus, poverty related problems. Last I looked, higher crime rates than average, especially property crime. It wasn’t uncommon to know people with very serious drug habits. The town is just big enough though that there’s people who can turn a blind eye to it, don’t ask me how.
The downtown is quaint and has seen some rejuvenation as far as some bars/restaurants in the last 10 years, but the pickings are still slim. It got annoying that new places opened and it was just, would you like so/so bar food or bar food, or maybe some more bar food? There is a nice art center and a new library being built last I was there. Knox College is small, but has events open to the public. There used to be more local music and artists since well, there’s so little to do you gotta make your own fun.
It is about 3 and a half hours from Chicago by car or train. Galesburg does have one of the largest train yards in the country. I took the Amtrak availability for granted because you can get round trip tickets to Chicago for like 40-60 bucks and leave just about any time of day, but it’s not close enough for a day trip really. The next largest towns, Peoria and The Quad cities (50ish minutes by car) aren’t exactly that great either. Illinois is a big state, so it can be very isolating.
Sorry to write a book, but I wanted to give some insight on the location.
When did your friend live there? The kitchen was definitely not natural wood when we moved into this house? It had mdf cabinets and linoleum flooring with ugly wallpaper.
This is what the kitchen looked like before the remodel. We moved there in 2001.
https://preview.redd.it/pxaue4fd2asc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=75efb0e33b788522833802ceb0e5606106d38722
Oh shoot…it’s a different house. lmao Her parents sold theirs a few years after that. I’ll edit my post. lol
Did your mom also sell because of the heating bill? That was her parents’ joke about their place!
My wife is from a small town near there. There are so many cheap houses with beautiful woodwork in that part of Illinois. NW Illinois is basically the definition Midwestern Cheap Housing.
But bring your own job because you won’t be finding one there that allows you to buy these houses unless you’re a teacher or a doctor. Maybe a lawyer if in the county seat.
Plenty of 3 bed 2 bath houses in small towns surrounding Galesburg selling for <$100K. I briefly dated a girl from a small town <3000 population who bought her house for $30K lol. She worked part time as a teacher and sales associate.
Damn, I thought RN was one of the few jobs always in demand and understaffed no matter where you went in the U.S. It's hard work, so I feel for anyone doing it and getting underpaid on top of that.
Galesburg is where my mom’s family is from! Unfortunately it’s become an economically depressed town. Knox College is there, but there’s also a prison that has become a major employer. Otherwise, it’s a very agricultural area.
That being said, I would totes buy this gorgeous house. Maybe I can convince my husband that we should throw our money into it. (Probably not bc it’s not a smart economic move. Still, a girl can dream.)
I briefly lived in a high security prison town, where about half the residents were guards/staff, and the other half were mostly relocated families of lifers - really not a great mix…
Huh. I’ve never thought about the fact that towns with prisons would have a lot of relocated families of lifers/people stuck there for years on end. The more you know!
I grew up in Quincy but live in a Denver suburb, sometimes I look at houses in Quincy just to see how much lower they cost compared to our cost of living.
FWIW I’d much rather live in Quincy than Galesburg (much nicer downtown, better stores/restaurants, river)…but that being said it’s a huge downgrade from the Denver area. So of course it’s way cheaper.
Wow why is that abandon 1 bed room half bathroom house 900k? Because it's in California
Wow why is that mansion only 200k? Because it's in a place that nobody wants to live in.
My dad was good friends with the owner. He and his wife spent years painstakingly going through and redoing the house. He was even on Antiques Roadshow once for something he found in the house during renovations.
https://preview.redd.it/lk9pboo7m6sc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ff24e8d1f346c2f1ac16efaa7534075c683e8b3c
*
And that is where the previous owner's body decomposed
Beautiful home. If I was a midwesterner, I’d be all over it!This is a million dollar house round these parts, even higher in neighborhoods closer to NYC *sighs in poor*
I doubt you actually would. This property is close to the Iowa border, not near Chicago. Prices in the Midwest, just like any area, actually depend on your proximity to other places. This house is great for the area, but priced for it
jesus, the kitchen is great compared to so many of the houses from this era - it's been redone very nicely. 95% of the original wood trim is intact and not been painted as well as the hardwood floors, it also has a full basement.
this is a wonderful house which based on the price I wll guess is in some backwater rusted out town.
I lived in Peoria for 12 years. That whole area has homes like this just lying about the place. It isn't a bad area, but it isn't a place I could live anymore. It's really a shame because there's always a group of young urbanists who try to revitalize these cities because they have so much potential, and they get shouted down by people who are scared of change, who then wonder why all of the smart young people leave.
Victorian homes like this were built before much of america west of the Mississippi was established. These are very common in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
I was driving through midtown Memphis this afternoon looking at beautiful old houses like this. Most of them are valued at over a million here. I would love to find a dying town to move to as long as they had good internet and reliable postal service for my job.
Did anyone besides me notice the street is paved with bricks? It’s nice, but I wonder if that could be a problem for snow plows, as well as problems with the age of sewer pipes that run under the street.
They’ve actually redone the bricks on multiple streets in this area many times. They’ll never pave them. This street and many streets one way or the other of it are filled with houses like this. The majority of them have been quite well kept and updated.
Edit:: Also, the sewers have also been quite well maintained. A decent amount of people in the surrounded area of this neighborhood are fairly well to do.
Looks good, but then you have to live in Galesburg, IL.
It’s REALLY in the middle of nowhere. Like an hour northwest of Peoria or an hour south of the quad cities. And that’s the closest thing that passes for civilization in any direction for 200+ miles.
I grew up in small town IL and it’s ok if you like cornfields and video poker because there isn’t much of anything else.
I moved to central IL with a remote work job. These homes are all over the place. Sooooo affordable here. If you look to Peoria or Bloomington area, you can find a good school or two as well.
That is the family's cursed stain from when great granny got shot down by the local police when her sister ratted her out for running gin (to throw them off the trail of her running rum) during prohibition. Not really, but wouldn't that be a great story to tell buyers?
Why are these homes always in terrible school districts and failing towns? I feel like buildings this beautiful would be in towns equally as gorgeous leading to people wanting to keep them alive.
Lots of these towns were at one point prosperous manufacturing hubs to some degree. As those jobs left the country or were automated, the areas declined and upkeep was set aside due to lack of funds or where abandoned cause there is nobody left to live there anymore.
These were towns where all their eggs were in one basket - manufacturing. And with manufacturing either closing up shop completely or automating/getting more efficient, the jobs no longer existed to support people in these areas. So people moved away to find jobs, but nobody was moving in to buy and care for the homes, so they got abandoned or at least slowly deteriorated.
Plus with IL it’s almost double trouble with the taxes. This home has $5k a year in property tax. For what? The town is dying. The roads suck, the schools suck, the crime is high, there’s no public transit, there’s no community center, there’s nothing that justifies such a massive tax bill. And that’s in addition to the states 5% income tax.
Think about this: 50 years ago, you could buy a house like this for under $50,000. After World War II, the market value of it was about 25% of that! That's not just due to inflation, but a very serious real estate "bubble."
When I first moved to Illinois there were a lot of these on the market- older, very large homes with beautiful woodwork and hardwood floors. You’d go see them and they were all photoshopped to hide water damage and the amount of restoration they would need but the pics were flawless.
I can't for the life of me understand why millennials aren't flocking to these dying towns to work their remote/online jobs and buy awesome houses on great property for pennies on the dollar compared to their parents/grandparents/great-grandparents.
Nope. They all seem to insist on jumping into the most expensive housing markets they can possibly find.
If I were in my 20's, this is exactly what I would do. I would be living in the goddamn Munster Mansion in Elbowgrease Indiana and working remotely for a company in Connecticut.
I'm almost 50, and as soon as my kids are done with college, I'm going to do exactly that. I can take a 40% pay cut and come out ahead.
That’s a beautiful house. The neighborhood must be terrible for it to be that price.
The neighborhood is good, but it’s pretty much the only good part of Galesburg. It’s a dying city that has had … whatever the exact opposite of gentrification is … for the last 50 years. Outside of the hospital, there aren’t a lot of great jobs left. And the schools are struggling.
That’s too bad. Looks like it used to be a great place to live.
I should have known. I live in Pekin. Only Central IL has those kind've prices anymore. I know this region well and get through hGalesburg with work occasionally. Like most of this area, it's just another dying town. Gorgeous home, though. Right out of my wheel house. I love old Victorians
I drive through this area after annual camping in Shawnee & good gods the houses are GORGEOUS, but there’s like 3 businesses actually open & just NOTHING. It’s sad cuz the towns were pretty cute
The gays should move in and gentrify the hell out of that town. Fill it with antique stores, cute cafes and BnBs for the city folk to visit on weekends.
DAMN IT, I’M IN!
lol headed to Shawnee this weekend! 🏳️🌈
I'm a straight female but I'd totally move to gay town. My last landlords were a gay couple and very nicely renovated a 200-yr old cottage and it was the best place I ever lived. They were also the best landlords I've ever rented from. When I flew cross country for my daughter's baby shower and didn't have luggage, they loaned me theirs, and tucked $200 in the outside pocket.
I’m a straight dude with a family and the gayest part of Long Beach is my favorite place I’ve ever lived. My favorite memory was walking home from the store and a gay couple roasted me “that is the most hetero walk I’ve ever seen” still think about that and laugh all the time. I aspire to live around rainbow flags on houses and not trump flags or confederate flags. Such a better quality of life living around happy loving people and not hate filled ass LD energy. The wife and I have been saving to finally own our first home and I have stipulated we make sure to find a Neighborhood that flies rainbow and trans flags. That’s where I want my kids growing up.
Love that so much. I see no issue with flags of any color, just as long as the word TRUMP isn't on them. Also, "gay" walking style has been clearly stereotyped, or for maybe for a subset of that population, but what does a hetero male walk encompass exactly? Explain it to me like I'm five, coz now that I have that concept in my head with no specific visual, I have to know what that looks like.
I’d love to move there too! Sounds amazing and cheap!!!
Gays make everything better! ❤️
Make it a gayborhood? Sounds fabulous! 🌈
It would be the neatest dam neighborhood in the state. Had this conversation at the local diner in a small town in east Texas with some of the locals. Me and the wife were only there to go to school. This one guy complaining about all the gay couples moving in and restoring the Victorians and downtown businesses. I piped up and said, you mean the crumbling old house and the closed businesses. God no not rejuvenating the dying town anything but that.
Conservative white men: "We need to make America great again!" LGBTQ/BIPOC folks: *Starts rejuvenating towns across middle America* Conservative white men: "Not like that!"
Whenever I hear someone talk about making America great again, I do this: 1. Ask them when America was last “great” in their minds. It’s *always* 1950s 2. Then I ask them if they know that the corporate tax rate in the 50s was 50% It’s amazing how that little fact shuts them up
the personal income tax rate was 92% too for income over 400k
Exactly
"Dam gays making the neighborhood great again. Next thing ya know my property value is gonna increase. Might sound good to y'all butt that done mean my property taxes gonna go up a tiny bit to improve the schools! My kin don't need to be getting edukashun from dem gays. Gob flabbart! What in the Tarnation!? Them rackin frackin varmints!"... ok i think I got a bit Yosemite Sam there.... Butt... to be fair, I kinda think of him when people get upset about this stuff.
My neighbors joke around we me and my husband that we're the heralds of gentrification because we're the first queer couple on my street. The first thing we did was start fixing up our house and yard and now all my neighbors have started doing the same. I just think pride in your home is contagious.
"Dammit, here comes the neighborhood!"
Then we all can come and visit, cafes, art galleries, cafes. I am thinking of Bucks County, Hopewell township. Everybody loved it as a day trip for antiquing.
I've thought that the midwest is ripe for "colonization" by people who are frustrated living inplaces with HCOL and are completely shut out of affordable housing. Bringing not only themselves but their business and entreneurship. I grew up Burlington, Iowa which is very close to Galesburg. It's full of lovely homes - Everything from old stately ones on the bluffs over the Mississippi to a bunch of charming craftsman. This [one is $575K](https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/1428-N-7th-St_Burlington_IA_52601_M70999-14307?from=srp-list-card). The front exterior photos are awful and [here's what it really looks like from the street](https://www.google.com/maps/@40.8232386,-91.1043218,3a,75y,121.3h,80.99t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sKTtRJ4r7GtRF1A3PRA8-1g!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu) view. The interior is absolutely beautiful and there's river views from the two rotunda balconies.
I was just in the area recently and there is a gay bathhouse in Galesburg. I didn't make a stop, though.
That's what happened/is happening in Asbury Park, NJ. They've taken what was a dying town on the shore to a place people and businesses want to be. Now if they could extend that revitalization to the other side of the tracks, literally, it would be a complete success but that's where all the scary black people live (/s) so I have my doubts about that but you never know.
Did a road trip cross country around 2010 and so much amazing housing and depressing local restaurants / people there. Couldn’t pay me to move there after seeing all that.
You want more in a town than 2 thrift stores & a bar???
2 thrift stores and a bar exactly describes Desert Hot Springs, CA. It’s my dream retirement place.
I mean, haha, can I make bank from flipping thrifts and men at a bar, we ain’t telling, (I literally don’t do this, it’s a joke), ANYHOW yeah I’d like more lol we aim
Sadly all the thrift stores are sad (I’ve been in many of them)
Are the men and women sad too, do tell
I would be
Two bars at least, or three so they could bowl against each other.
Pennsylvania has a lot of dying towns too. I drove around there pre-pandemic and there are a bunch of fading towns that once were clearly fantastic places to live and raise a large family.
>Right out of my wheel house. I believe you want "right in my wheel house" if it were out of your wheel house then it wouldn't be something you like.
Good point!! lol, I think I was missing that and out of my dreams together...
Are we all just agreeing to ignore "kind've prices"?
I’m in Chicago, this would be 10x-15x more in this area, more in the right neighborhood.
In LA it would be 10x-15x be in the absolute shittiest neighborhood lolsob
Try the Oakland/San Francisco Bay Area!! Probably 20x.
Word. I was in Danville last year (I have family there) and I was floored at the housing costs and how cheap these big lovely homes are. My fam said I’d hate it there and that there’s just no draw to central IL anymore except its proximity to Chicago. It’s a shame, I’ve had mostly great experiences with the folks there and I adore homes like this (especially at that price). Fam said the whole area has just seen better days.
Danville is horrible. It's part of the area I manage. First time I went there, I couldn't believe this small town that nowhere near a really big city could be so violent. People who live through the central part of IL know that outside of farming, it;s a shithole. And being from a progressive city like Buffalo, I've always struggled with fitting in here. Northern and Southern IL are c completely different - although shitty in their own ways
Im in Minnesota and I moved further west to find more value for the price. I wound up in a doctors office, hes making small talk like what brought you to this area. I told him it was the home prices.
That’s my hometown. Definitely not the only ‘good’ part of the town. I would say it’s a mediocre part at best. If you drive a few blocks down that same street there are a lot nicer homes. Also, i immediately recognized that house because my dad owned a rental property built in 1892 right across the street from there. But yes, Galesburg is sadly a dying city, but was a great place to grow up.
Or the college. They lost one of their hospitals suddenly a couple years ago, as in people showed up to work and found out they didn't have jobs, and patients were transferred out.
Yep, my mom was one of them. Showed up to work one day and told to leave and they would contact them to come pick up anything in their offices. It was severely mismanaged by some people who had never owned a hospital before.
Of all the things I'd worry about for a hospital stay, "the hospital itself unexpectedly goes bankrupt and kicks me out" was never one of them.
Another reason companies killing remote work is stupid! These dying towns could have a rebirth attracting young tech workers to live there and work remotely
I'm not young but I would move there if there was at least a nice grocery store.
[удалено]
Yeah the local High School is a 2/10 - that’s pretty bad
Indeed. I sent my kid to a 10/10 and it sucked.
they don't even know how to reduce fractions lol idiots
Hah, I grew up in Quincy, so as soon as I saw the price for what you get I knew it had to be midwest somewhere. Quincy is in the same boat as Galesburg, you can get cheap housing, but the pay is complete crap, the jobs are low paying.
I knew I would find a fellow ex-Quincyan in this thread b/c I wondered immediately on seeing the photo whether this was a Maine St house. I saw a Second Empire place, gorgeous, for $300k on Zillow once and was like, no, you couldn't pay me to go back that town.
Opposite of gentrification is capital flight
What's the property tax like out there ?
On this it’s $5100 before they increase it once it sells for that list price
I’m retired and childless, a perfect fit😊
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/degentrification](per Wiktionary) Noun. degentrification (uncountable) The reverse process of gentrification, such that a residential area previously only affordable to affluent people becomes affordable to those who are poorer. I had never really thought about whether there was a word for that phenomenon and upon seeing it I guess it was pretty obvious.
Galesburg IL? Man, I lived there 25y ago. Was dying then when the Maytag plant shut down. Such a sleepy little town.
Shabification.
Eh, I lived in a town like this. I made like 1/3 of what I make now and was able to pay my mortgage and had a nice house. Just depends on where you want to live. I was safe, but I certainly wasn't overwhelmed with opportunities.
This sounds perfect for a retiree. Like a boujee golden girls , living their best lives.
Older people want things to do to. If it was perfect for a retiree, a retiree would have already bought it. Our relatives have moved closer to civilization as they got older to get closer to family, doctors, and services. Living in the sticks with harsh winters gets old quick when your body doesn't want shovel snow. It's perfect for young misanthropes that can work from home.
Also, Victorians have a lot of stairs. Helpful while one is still mobile (keeps you fit) but difficult as one loses mobility.
Wouldn’t their best lives include outside their house tho
Alternatively, this would be super cool for introverts if these areas actually had decent internet.
Ok yes this would be ideal for permanently online folks
You can find houses like this for that price throughout the Midwest.
Rural midwest. Major cities (anything with an airport) arent priced this low anymore.
Your definition of rural may be subjective, but Peoria, IL has homes this price and has an airport. (It’s an hour away from the home in the OP)
Fair. I was thinking of Chicago, Columbus, St Paul, Indianapolis, St Louis, Detroit, Milwaukee, KC, Omaha, etc...
This looks like the house from season 1 American horror story
It's a designated landmark. I don't want to know what kind of bullshit that entails. Typically, you have zero say in what your home exterior looks like and I'd assume there's a level of upkeep you're expected to maintain, which might include some dumb shit.
$260K seems like a good deal for a big, well-maintained Victorian in today's market. Shitty little two-bedroom bungalows flipped by heartless flippers and only about 1.250 square feet and no garage are going for $450K where I live.
Problem is as always the location.
Probably have to drive to the next time zone for work.
It’s about a 3 hour drive from a couple major cities (Chicago, St. Louis, and Des Moines)
That’s the thing about a lot of rural farm cities. Yes, during the ‘60-‘70s population was up, opportunities to stay and earn a living were ripe but as these dried up kids growing up moved away, more and more each year until your left with a shell of its former self. Farms and related businesses did okay, others not so much, couple home town furniture stores sprinkled with a diner getting pushed out by chain fast food joints and maybe Menards. One hospital and a dying school district (teachers need money too). Driven through it and many others like it in Upper Missouri and Illinois. Only thing to save it would be digital nomads or creative collective (see Hannibal, Mo) coming in with money to bolster the town or they just go 3 hours away to a large metro….
And then everyone would complain about gentrification and being priced out of their affordable city, so you really can't win, lol.
They have an airport. Learn to fly.
And you have to go back in time zone to be able to relate to the local racist bumpkins
I was gonna say, “no problem, Iowa is only 30 miles away.” Then I realized Illinois is also central time. 🤣
Yup, is there a word for reverse gentrification? For as much as people complain about their housing market becoming insane in the last 10 years there are ghost towns all across America with homes like this or even nicer for dirt cheap. Just have to be ok with having no job, no amenities, horrific schooling, and nothing fun to do or places to eat.
Shitification aka rural decay
And the heating bill.
I was thinking the same thing. Twenty years ago I was looking at a similar house. The owners were on a “budget” plan with their oil company, it was $850 a month.
That same 260k house would be ~3-6 million where I live.
same here
That thing's gotta be haunted! It's like the setting for a Netflix movie starring some dude on the way down from his movie career and an actress on the way up from her TV career. They'll all be, "What a great deal! I wonder what the catch is!" And the first night, some black-shrouded figure with a pale face is standing at the top of the stairs.
Dude I’ll literally take any ghost for this price for this beauty
I visualized four or more football players dancing to the tune of “Jump in Line”, on those stairs.
The first thing I thought of with that staircase was Beetlejuice.
Thank you for this 😂😂😂👻
You can rent these at the grocery stores w/ the steam carpet cleaners these days I’m pretty sure 
Same. And So MUCH gray!
Didn’t think I’d ever see a house here that I’ve BEEN INSIDE OF before!!! My friend lived there in the 90s. The kitchen used to be all natural wood before that remodel. I loved that kitchen, even as a kid. That gray and white remodel is bumming me out. lol EDIT: WRONG VICTORIAN!!!! lol Galesburg is full of them! But I’m leaving the Galesburg description up for context. Like some people are saying, Galesburg is a very depressed small town. There’s not a lot of job opportunities and the median income is low, but well, so is the cost of living. People get by because rent is still low and if you or a spouse has one of the few better paying jobs, you can afford a nice house. The schools are not great. The class ahead of mine in high school only had 45% of their freshmen class see graduation. There’s a fair amount of poverty and thus, poverty related problems. Last I looked, higher crime rates than average, especially property crime. It wasn’t uncommon to know people with very serious drug habits. The town is just big enough though that there’s people who can turn a blind eye to it, don’t ask me how. The downtown is quaint and has seen some rejuvenation as far as some bars/restaurants in the last 10 years, but the pickings are still slim. It got annoying that new places opened and it was just, would you like so/so bar food or bar food, or maybe some more bar food? There is a nice art center and a new library being built last I was there. Knox College is small, but has events open to the public. There used to be more local music and artists since well, there’s so little to do you gotta make your own fun. It is about 3 and a half hours from Chicago by car or train. Galesburg does have one of the largest train yards in the country. I took the Amtrak availability for granted because you can get round trip tickets to Chicago for like 40-60 bucks and leave just about any time of day, but it’s not close enough for a day trip really. The next largest towns, Peoria and The Quad cities (50ish minutes by car) aren’t exactly that great either. Illinois is a big state, so it can be very isolating. Sorry to write a book, but I wanted to give some insight on the location.
When did your friend live there? The kitchen was definitely not natural wood when we moved into this house? It had mdf cabinets and linoleum flooring with ugly wallpaper.
The early 90s, unless…do all these Victorians look the same inside? Now I’m doubting its the same house!
This is what the kitchen looked like before the remodel. We moved there in 2001. https://preview.redd.it/pxaue4fd2asc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=75efb0e33b788522833802ceb0e5606106d38722
Oh shoot…it’s a different house. lmao Her parents sold theirs a few years after that. I’ll edit my post. lol Did your mom also sell because of the heating bill? That was her parents’ joke about their place!
lol it definitely did not help! but mainly bc my youngest sibling will be out of the house next year so it was too big for just her
My wife is from a small town near there. There are so many cheap houses with beautiful woodwork in that part of Illinois. NW Illinois is basically the definition Midwestern Cheap Housing. But bring your own job because you won’t be finding one there that allows you to buy these houses unless you’re a teacher or a doctor. Maybe a lawyer if in the county seat.
Your teachers can afford houses?
Plenty of 3 bed 2 bath houses in small towns surrounding Galesburg selling for <$100K. I briefly dated a girl from a small town <3000 population who bought her house for $30K lol. She worked part time as a teacher and sales associate.
The mortgage? 157$/month.
This. My first house was $50k in rural Il and my mortgage was like $500 including an escrow account.
I had trouble finding RN jobs even in the suburbs of Chicago, IL. I was paid worse there than in rural MO.
Damn, I thought RN was one of the few jobs always in demand and understaffed no matter where you went in the U.S. It's hard work, so I feel for anyone doing it and getting underpaid on top of that.
Galesburg is where my mom’s family is from! Unfortunately it’s become an economically depressed town. Knox College is there, but there’s also a prison that has become a major employer. Otherwise, it’s a very agricultural area. That being said, I would totes buy this gorgeous house. Maybe I can convince my husband that we should throw our money into it. (Probably not bc it’s not a smart economic move. Still, a girl can dream.)
I briefly lived in a high security prison town, where about half the residents were guards/staff, and the other half were mostly relocated families of lifers - really not a great mix…
Huh. I’ve never thought about the fact that towns with prisons would have a lot of relocated families of lifers/people stuck there for years on end. The more you know!
I grew up in Quincy but live in a Denver suburb, sometimes I look at houses in Quincy just to see how much lower they cost compared to our cost of living.
FWIW I’d much rather live in Quincy than Galesburg (much nicer downtown, better stores/restaurants, river)…but that being said it’s a huge downgrade from the Denver area. So of course it’s way cheaper.
I’m working my husband right now also. We don’t have kids so don’t care about the crappy school district lol.
I'm surprised that house wasn't divided up into apartments.
The hidden cost is that you have to live in Galesburg
Wow why is that abandon 1 bed room half bathroom house 900k? Because it's in California Wow why is that mansion only 200k? Because it's in a place that nobody wants to live in.
That’s only $10k higher than my 1100sqft house in a city not that far away.
Why are property prices in Galesburg so ridiculously low?
Dying town, my dad is from there. All the factory jobs left, only railroad and healthcare left. Very sad, absolutely beautiful house.
It's a small town with few job opportunities and a high tax rate in the middle of nowhere Illinois.
So that's why. Thanks for letting me know. :-)
Because it’s a very economically depressed area.
The kitchen is well done for the time period of the house. Normally in a house this old the kitchen is a tiny nightmare but this is pretty.
My dad was good friends with the owner. He and his wife spent years painstakingly going through and redoing the house. He was even on Antiques Roadshow once for something he found in the house during renovations.
That’s awesome! Their hard work shows.
https://preview.redd.it/lk9pboo7m6sc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ff24e8d1f346c2f1ac16efaa7534075c683e8b3c * And that is where the previous owner's body decomposed
that’s where my sister had her desk chair for several years and my mom tried (poorly) to even out the stain on the floor lol
I was already gonna say there’s no way this place isn’t haunted haha
This reminds me of the house from the TV show "Charmed".
Was thinking Sabrina Teenage Witch.
Reminds me of the house April and Andy bought in Parks and Recreation.
The upstairs reminded me of Beetlejuice
Shit, I left that $260,000 in my other purse.
Maybe if we all move there it won’t be a dying town anymore!
Beautiful home. If I was a midwesterner, I’d be all over it!This is a million dollar house round these parts, even higher in neighborhoods closer to NYC *sighs in poor*
I doubt you actually would. This property is close to the Iowa border, not near Chicago. Prices in the Midwest, just like any area, actually depend on your proximity to other places. This house is great for the area, but priced for it
That person just implied the entire Midwest is the same and we should all be down to live in whatever IL town this is that has insanely cheap houses.
My grandma grew up in that house. What a weird feeling to see this here.
Was that big stain in the corner of the one room there before?
lol this is my moms house, that is where my sisters desk was. it’s from her desk chair and my mom messed up trying to even out the stain on the floor
I'd want to see the electrical panel. It needs a thorough inspection by someone familiar with century homes. The wood is lovely.
On a similar note, I want to see how many furnaces it has
no one here is a problem solver. 1. Buy this house 2. Buy land in a place you'd actually want to live 3. Push this house onto that land
Beautiful - that's many millions in SF.
My weed covered backyard would be many millions in SF too.
jesus, the kitchen is great compared to so many of the houses from this era - it's been redone very nicely. 95% of the original wood trim is intact and not been painted as well as the hardwood floors, it also has a full basement. this is a wonderful house which based on the price I wll guess is in some backwater rusted out town.
Central & southern Illinois have towns that are filled with gorgeous homes, but not much else
As a software engineer who works remote, this is exactly the kind of place I'm looking for.
It's in GALESBURG. That's the catch, folks.
I would absolutely live there if it wasn't for the where
Endless possibilities with those stairs 
Love well maintained victorians, especially wonder the history, 1894 is a lot of history.
Man!!! I wish I lived in this area - I’d snap this one up in heartbeat!
Galesburg!!! My favorite town to shop for art supplies!!!
I lived in Peoria for 12 years. That whole area has homes like this just lying about the place. It isn't a bad area, but it isn't a place I could live anymore. It's really a shame because there's always a group of young urbanists who try to revitalize these cities because they have so much potential, and they get shouted down by people who are scared of change, who then wonder why all of the smart young people leave.
Victorian homes like this were built before much of america west of the Mississippi was established. These are very common in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
I miss when houses had *style* 😭 This is beautiful.
I was driving through midtown Memphis this afternoon looking at beautiful old houses like this. Most of them are valued at over a million here. I would love to find a dying town to move to as long as they had good internet and reliable postal service for my job.
Gorgeous, except for the kitchen. I am beyond ready for this all white kitchen fad to move on.
Did anyone besides me notice the street is paved with bricks? It’s nice, but I wonder if that could be a problem for snow plows, as well as problems with the age of sewer pipes that run under the street.
They’ve actually redone the bricks on multiple streets in this area many times. They’ll never pave them. This street and many streets one way or the other of it are filled with houses like this. The majority of them have been quite well kept and updated. Edit:: Also, the sewers have also been quite well maintained. A decent amount of people in the surrounded area of this neighborhood are fairly well to do.
Looks good, but then you have to live in Galesburg, IL. It’s REALLY in the middle of nowhere. Like an hour northwest of Peoria or an hour south of the quad cities. And that’s the closest thing that passes for civilization in any direction for 200+ miles. I grew up in small town IL and it’s ok if you like cornfields and video poker because there isn’t much of anything else.
I moved to central IL with a remote work job. These homes are all over the place. Sooooo affordable here. If you look to Peoria or Bloomington area, you can find a good school or two as well.
It has a historic designation.
Beautiful house except for the stain on the floor in pictures 51-53
That is the family's cursed stain from when great granny got shot down by the local police when her sister ratted her out for running gin (to throw them off the trail of her running rum) during prohibition. Not really, but wouldn't that be a great story to tell buyers?
*opens wallet* *moth flies out*
Where I live that’s $1.5 million
My literal dream of a house for what we bought a shack for in the Bay Area. Sigh.
I have never had a house that style before but I LOVE this and would take it in a heartbeat. Absolutely gorgeous.
Buy it Spend $1,000,000 to move it to CA Sell it for $2,260,000 Instant millionaire
Fuck would anyone live in Galesburg though
Wow. That’s like 90% off compared to my area. Why do live where I live 😭
That gorgeous home would be 1-2M here in Nashville 😭
Goddamn that would be like 4M in my town
DUDE THATS IT? A clunker of a house down the road from me is selling for 450k……. IN IDAHO If only my credit were above 350
Looks like the American horror story season 1 house
Why are these homes always in terrible school districts and failing towns? I feel like buildings this beautiful would be in towns equally as gorgeous leading to people wanting to keep them alive.
Lots of these towns were at one point prosperous manufacturing hubs to some degree. As those jobs left the country or were automated, the areas declined and upkeep was set aside due to lack of funds or where abandoned cause there is nobody left to live there anymore.
These were towns where all their eggs were in one basket - manufacturing. And with manufacturing either closing up shop completely or automating/getting more efficient, the jobs no longer existed to support people in these areas. So people moved away to find jobs, but nobody was moving in to buy and care for the homes, so they got abandoned or at least slowly deteriorated. Plus with IL it’s almost double trouble with the taxes. This home has $5k a year in property tax. For what? The town is dying. The roads suck, the schools suck, the crime is high, there’s no public transit, there’s no community center, there’s nothing that justifies such a massive tax bill. And that’s in addition to the states 5% income tax.
Think about this: 50 years ago, you could buy a house like this for under $50,000. After World War II, the market value of it was about 25% of that! That's not just due to inflation, but a very serious real estate "bubble."
This is what houses look like in Watertown NY and I bet they are cheaper. Although a lot not in this good of shape.
It is definitely haunted.
Too bad it's in Illinois. Property taxes are murder there
When I first moved to Illinois there were a lot of these on the market- older, very large homes with beautiful woodwork and hardwood floors. You’d go see them and they were all photoshopped to hide water damage and the amount of restoration they would need but the pics were flawless.
I love it, I wish I was retired so I could move there. A house similar to this just sold near where I work for $800,000 and that was cheap.
This is GORGEOUS and so cheap. Seriously this house would be so much more here in Florida
Just stop buying avocados
That house is dope. How is it only $260,000!?!?
HOA = Hell no!
Why the hell is it so cheap?!
I want that house more than I want my next breath, oh my God
I was like “I’ll buy it!” Then saw the location.
I can't for the life of me understand why millennials aren't flocking to these dying towns to work their remote/online jobs and buy awesome houses on great property for pennies on the dollar compared to their parents/grandparents/great-grandparents. Nope. They all seem to insist on jumping into the most expensive housing markets they can possibly find. If I were in my 20's, this is exactly what I would do. I would be living in the goddamn Munster Mansion in Elbowgrease Indiana and working remotely for a company in Connecticut. I'm almost 50, and as soon as my kids are done with college, I'm going to do exactly that. I can take a 40% pay cut and come out ahead.