So, there’s an Instagram account called Cheap Old Houses that started showing various semi-historic homes around the world that cost $100,000-ish dollars. It’s grown to include 2.6 million followers, a book, and a soon-to-debut HGTV show. (I admit, I’ve perused a house or two in remote, seaside parts of Crete and Scandinavia that they’ve featured). Apparently, they’ve recently found Pittsburgh – a house in Mt. Oliver, specifically. It’s well preserved and hasn’t been gutted and turned into a blank white minimalist shell (yet). And it’s selling for $85,000.
Mt. Oliver is one of those city neighborhoods that’s cheap for a reason — it’s been a long time since more people have moved in than moved out (or got old and died). But you also don’t even have to squint to find a bright side here: it’s got a dense, walkable core and strong small businesses like Brown Bear Bread Café, and Flavor of Puerto Rico and the only-in-Pittsburgh combination coffee/breakfast/metal fabrication shop ECHT Coffee House. It’s got hundreds of small brick and wood-frame homes that were once some immigrant steelworker’s fondest dream of America.
If Mt. Oliver turns into the Strip District overnight and these little Pittsburgh grandma houses dotting the hillsides all become luxury condos/Airbnb rentals, well — I hereby retroactively rescind any stated desire that people should buy any of these houses. But, since that’s a fairly unlikely outcome, go ahead and seek out the cheap old houses of your dreams here.
HILLTOP
For sale: 414 Saint Joseph St. $129,000. Mt. Oliver
So, we should probably point out that Mt. Oliver does NOT have unlimited houses for sale at ridiculous prices. But yeah, there are a few. This brick, three-bedroom house has 2,705 square feet and a very nice porch to give your dreams some air — and for plenty of people, that’s enough. If you require three garages, vast acreages of lawn, and perhaps a helipad, you are probably looking in the wrong place.