Where are the Sears Houses - September 2021 Edition

Sears Langston - Watervliet. New York
Image courtesy of Zillow

It's been almost a year since I did the last "Where the are the Sears Houses" update. But that's less a reflection on the pace of progress in finding Sears houses and more a reflection on your intrepid reporter being lax in posting an update. We actually reached the 13,500 house mark back in May, which means it took about 7 months to find 500 houses. Since May, we've made good progress towards 14,000! All that said, it's time to post another update of "Where are the Sears Houses?" 

Here is the breakdown of location of houses by state based on approximately 13,500 homes in the database. Let's take a look! 

As of this date, Sears houses have been located in 46 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 (2800+ homes): Ohio continues to have the most documented homes with over 2,800 homes, accounting for 21% of the houses on the list. It's just shy of 2,900 and will surely hit that mark by the next update. 

2. Illinois (2300+ homes): Illinois fell just short of 2,400 homes for this update. The number of homes from Illinois account for almost 18% of the houses on the list.

3. Pennsylvania (1900+ homes): Pennsylvania added over 175 homes to the list since the last update! That's a huge increase and reflects a significant amount of research into houses with mortgages by my fellow kit house researchers. 

4. New York (1600+ homes): The pace of new homes from New York slowed as compared to previous updates but it's still solidly in fourth place. 

5. Michigan (1000+ homes): Michigan didn't add a lot of new homes but stays in fifth place. 

6. Indiana (700+): There weren't as many updates for Indiana this time around but it keeps its 6th place position.  

7. New Jersey (600+): New Jersey continues to slowly move towards 700 homes.

8. Maryland (350+): Maryland passed the 350 home mark and is closing in on 400 homes. 

9. Washington DC (310): Washington DC added two more houses since the last update.

10. Virginia (200+): Virginia is closing in on 250 homes and stays in tenth place on the list.

11. Kentucky (200+): Kentucky added 15 homes, pushing it past Wisconsin and into eleventh place.

12. Wisconsin (200+): Wisconsin only added one home which led to it bumping down to twelfth place on the list. 

13. Connecticut (100+): Connecticut didn't add any homes but remained in thirteenth place. 

14. Massachusetts (100+): Massachusetts only added a few houses but it was enough to move it past Missouri. 

15. Missouri (100+): Missouri also did not add any homes leaving it in fifteenth place. 

Currently, there are 15 states where at least 100 Sears houses have been located within the state. The top 10 states account for 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.