Sears Modern Homes on Wikipedia

One of the things I've learned in reading articles online and in print about Sears homes is that one of the most frequently consulted sources about houses from Sears is Wikipedia. Whether it's cited or not, it becomes quickly apparent when an author has done their research using the Wikipedia entry for Sears homes. I've spent some time trying to ensure that the entry is factually accurate so if that's an author's only source of information, they could do a lot worse. Still, it's bothered me that for years, the entry was titled "Sears Catalog Homes". While the article content made clear that the homes sold by Sears weren't limited to catalog sales or examples from the catalog, the title left a different impression. So I'm pleased to see that the title for the entry was recently updated to "Sears Modern Homes". I think this change is a good one for a couple of reasons:

1. It reflects the fact that "Sears Modern Homes" was the branding used by Sears for the houses that they sold through their "Modern Homes" catalog. 

2. By removing the reference to "catalog" in the title, it makes the title more consistent with the article content, which reflects the numerous ways that the "Modern Homes" were sold - through mail order catalog, from "Modern Homes" offices and by salesmen employed by Sears Roebuck. 

It may seem like a small change but hopefully, it will ensure that the "Modern Homes" name appears in more articles in the future and more readers will learn about all the ways that Sears sold their "catalog" homes. 

Covington, Kentucky - An Introduction

Sears Langston
Covington, Kentucky

Covington, Kentucky is located on the south bank of the Ohio River, opposite the treasure trove of Sears houses that can be found in Cincinnati, Ohio. Once we discovered how many Sears houses were located in Cincinnati, it was only logical to assume that Covington would be home to a fair share of Sears houses too. Over the years, we had read stories that made reference to a large number of Sears houses in Covington. There were even rumors of a survey of Sears houses in Covington. But none of my fellow researchers had any luck putting their hands on said survey. From time to time, houses would pop up in real estate ads and searches of digitized newspapers, and we would add another Sears house in Covington to the list. But no one had pulled together a publicly available comprehensive list of Sears houses in Covington to see what all was out there - until now. Let's take a look!

Where are the Sears Houses - December 2019 Edition

Sears Claremont
New Providence, New Jersey

The cold days of winter can be prime days for Sears house hunting. While the snow and ice may keep kit house researchers off the roads, it's the perfect time for us to go online and find homes from Sears Roebuck through real estate listings, newspaper articles, public records and other digital resources. Recently, one of the members of our research group put out the challenge to reach the 12,000 homes mark by the end of 2019. The group stepped up to the challenge and hit 12,000 with weeks to go before the end of the year.

Sears Homes for Sale

Sears Dover - Anderson, Indiana
Photo Courtesy of Zillow

Searching real estate listing is one of my primary ways of finding new examples of homes from Sears Roebuck. Too often, I find houses listed as being from "Sears" when they are either homes from another kit house company or more often simply not a kit house at all. To make things worse, these same houses often appear in real estate and newspaper "features" as examples of Sears houses. On the flip side, I often see actual houses from Sears Roebuck listed for sale with nary a mention of their heritage. In my effort to help educate people about Sears houses, I've created a new Facebook page called "Sears Homes for Sale" where I'm posting real estate listings of Sears houses for sale (and houses from other catalog and kit house companies as I come across them). If you're interested in following along, hop on over to Facebook and give the page a like!

Sears Homes for Sale - Facebook

Where are the Sears Houses - June 2019 Edition

Sears #229 - 2729 Weaverton St
Rochester Hills, Michigan

It's been a while since the last update to "Where are the Sears Houses?", six months to be exact, but we've finally reached the 11,500 mark for houses on national database of Sears Roebuck homes! After a few slow months, the pace of finding houses has started to pick up and earlier this week, we blew right past 11,500 houses. Many of the recent additions were discoveries from a research trip to Cleveland taken by a group of kit house researchers including myself. Many of the new finds are also authenticated with Sears mortgages. It's always exciting to be able to authenticate finds old and new with mortgages!