Where are the Sears Houses - January 2019 Edition

Sears Cedars  - 175 Wetmore Road
Columbus, Ohio

That was fast! It feels like I just wrote up the last update to "Where are the Sears Houses?" and we're already at the 11,000 house mark! Actually, it was three months ago that I shared the last update and since then, another 500 homes have been added to the national database of Sears Roebuck homes. Our crew of kit house researchers didn't hunker down for the winter. Instead, they've been busy finding houses! Here is the breakdown of the location of houses by state based on approximately 11,000 homes in the database. Let's take a look!

As of this date, Sears houses have been located in 44 states, the District of Columbia and the Provinces of Alberta and Ontario, Canada.

The following is a breakdown of the states that have the largest number of identified Sears homes.

1. Ohio (2300+ homes): Ohio leads the way again with over 2,300 homes. Ohio continues to account for over 20% of the houses on the list. Ohio took a big lead this update thanks to the hard work of fellow kit house researcher Cindy Catanzaro who has been busy going through the mortgage records for the area in and around Columbus, Ohio. The Sears "Cedars" in Columbus, Ohio featured above is one of her recent finds. 

2. Illinois (2100+ homes): Illinois continues to hold onto second place on the list. It's just a few homes shy of 2,200 in the database. With this update, the number of homes from Illinois account for just a hair under 20% of the houses on the list.

3. Pennsylvania (1500+ homes): Pennsylvania maintains its third place position after clearing the 1,500 home mark in this update. 

4. New York (1200+ homes): New York stays at number four on the list although not as many homes were added to its tally in this most recent update. 

5. Michigan (900+ homes): Michigan finally cleared the 900 home mark!  

6. Indiana (400+): Indiana is slowly making its way towards 450 homes, staying in sixth place. 

7. New Jersey (400+): New Jersey moved past 400 homes with this update with the addition of over 30 homes. At this pace, it will pass Indiana on the list soon.

8. Maryland (300+): Maryland added a handful of homes as it maintains its eighth place spot.

9. Washington DC (301): Washington DC added one house in this update.

10. Wisconsin (200+): Only a few houses were found in Wisconsin since the last update but it's still hanging onto tenth place. 

11. Kentucky (175+): Kentucky leapt past Virginia, adding 15 houses, leaving it just shy of the 200 house mark as it moved into eleventh place. 

12. Virginia (175+): The pace of homes added in Virginia slowed but it's less than 20 homes away from 200. 

Currently, there are 12 states where at least 100 Sears houses have been located in the state but Massachusetts and Missouri have almost reached the 100 house total. The top 10 states account for about 90% of the total number of houses on the list.

The national database of Sears Modern Homes is the collective work of a number of kit house researchers located across the country. The sources of the information in the database include the personal work of those researchers, the work of other kit house researchers, publicly available resources including newspapers and websites and information provided by home owners and other members of the public with an interest in kit houses.