The average cost to buy a home in Florida in 2025 is hovering around $385,000, according to Zillow’s most current Florida housing market data.
But there was once a time, about 85 years ago, when you could buy a mail-order home from a catalog, called a “kit home”, and have it shipped to you to build yourself — for less than half of that price. Even the most expensive kit home in 1940 would have cost around $6,500, and would now only cost around $150,000 when adjusted for inflation.
Sears wasn’t the only American department store to sell kit homes in the early 20th century, but it was the most popular and its catalog homes remain one of the most-talked-about retail phenomena in the U.S.
According to the research team at SearsHouses.com, a database that tracks the Sears kit homes still standing in the U.S., Sears advertised having sold approximately 70,000 to 100,000 kit homes; however, the exact number remains unverified.
“We are frequently contacted by people in Florida who think that their home is a Sears kit, or that there is a large concentration of Sears kit houses in Florida… but, that’s not the case at all,” the SearsHouses.com research team told the USA TODAY Florida Network in an email.
Here’s a little bit about Sears’ kit homes and how many are left standing in Florida.
What years could you buy a house from Sears? How much did a house from Sears cost?
Sears sold kit houses from 1908 through 1942, according to the research team at SearsHouses.com.
Sears houses were essentially homes in a box. Consumers ordered the blueprint and building supplies from a specialty Sears catalog. The supplies were then shipped, primarily by rail, to the homeowner, who would either build it themselves or hire a contractor to assemble it.
Here’s what was included with the purchase of a Sears kit home, according to SearsHouses.com:
“For some of these items, there were options (type of wiring, heating, plumbing fixtures, for example, or upgrades for flooring and trim wood), and any masonry items were purchased through Sears, but obtained through a local supplier, rather than being shipped by Sears,” SearsHouses.com says.
There are likely two reasons why Sears kit homes weren’t as popular in Florida as they were in other states during their heyday.
The first: Sears was and is headquartered in Illinois, and the homes were transported primarily using rail, meaning there’s a higher concentration of Sears kit homes in northern and midwestern states than in the south.
The second reason is likely that many kit home models featured basements. And as most Floridians know, a basement in Florida is very rare.
“We don’t think that Sears marketed very heavily in Florida… perhaps because Sears houses require a basement,” SearsHouses.com told the USA TODAY Florida Network.
The cost of Sears kit homes ranged based on the model chosen by the customer, with pricing ranging from just over $600 to around $6,500 and most models falling within the $2,000 to $3,000 range.
Here’s how much those prices would be now, when adjusted for inflation from 1940 through June 2025, using the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator:
When did Sears stop printing catalogs?
Sears printed its first catalogs in 1888, originally including only watches and jewelry. The catalog grew and remained in print until 1993.
“The retail giant’s mail-order business reigned supreme for more than a century, offering everything from quack cures to ready-to-build homes,” Smithsonian Magazine says.
“Like Amazon, Sears was a crucial cog in the American wheel, a giant of its time. Over its century-plus span, the Big Book grew to well over 1,000 pages and sold more than 100,000 items.”
The Sears mail-order catalog, later known as the “Big Book,” became “the Amazon of the Victorian era (and beyond),” Smithsonian Magazine says.
But in January of 1993, Sears stopped producing its catalog, marking the beginning of the end of the retail giant’s dominance in the department store market. In 2009, the famous “Sears Tower” in Chicago, which once housed the company’s headquarters, was renamed. And in 2018, the company declared bankruptcy.
Do kit homes still exist? Less than 25 left in Florida
Yes! Many kit homes still stand across the U.S. today, but because the Sears Modern Homes sales records were destroyed, there is no definitive way to verify the number of Sears houses that still exist.
SearsHouses.com’s research team has confirmed only 22 known Sears kit homes still stand in Florida.
Although it’s unlikely, you can check if your home is a Sears kit home by first knowing what year it was built. If it was built between 1908 and 1942, you may have a kit home. If your home was built in that time frame, look for any stamped letters and numbers on exposed lumber in your attic (or basement).
You can also look for shipping labels on baseboard molding, door and window trim, and other similar features, and compare your home to archival images of Sears kit homes in catalogs.
Sears kit homes confirmed in Florida: City-by-city list
Here’s a list of the Florida cities where SearsHouses.com’s research team has confirmed still-standing Sears kit homes:
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Do you live in a Sears ‘kit home’? Here’s how to tell, how many are left in Florida
Reporting by Lianna Norman, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida / Florida Times-Union
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
