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Five open houses across Williamson, Jackson, Franklin and Union counties this weekend. The list is short, so the shape of it is easy to see — and the shape is the story.
Nothing in the Middle
Line the five up by price and there is a hole you could drive a truck through. Three are under $130,000. Two are over $300,000. Nothing is open this weekend between $125,000 and $329,900 — a $204,900 step with not one house in it.
That matters because the middle is where most people around here are actually shopping. If your range is $150,000 to $300,000, this weekend has nothing for you to walk through, and the honest advice is to book a private showing instead of driving around. There are hundreds of houses for sale across these four counties; five of them happen to be open.
The Weekend, Hour by Hour
| Day | Time | Address | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Saturday, October 3 | 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM | 8193 Old Highway 13, Murphysboro | $335,000 |
| 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM | 1505 W Brewster Rd, Herrin | $329,900 | |
| 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM | 105 N Lawrence St, De Soto | $125,000 | |
| Sunday, October 4 | 1:00 AM to 3:00 PM ⚠ | 207 W Sylvia Ave, Christopher | $113,400 |
| 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM | 1505 W Brewster Rd, Herrin | $329,900 | |
| 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM | 709 N Locust St, Sesser | $99,900 |
⚠ The Christopher listing publishes its Sunday window as “1:00 AM to 3:00 PM”. We have reproduced it exactly as the record reads rather than guess at the intended hour — call before you drive.
Saturday and Sunday are almost two different markets. Saturday carries both of the expensive houses plus De Soto. Sunday carries the two cheapest — Christopher at $113,400 and Sesser at $99,900. One house bridges them, and it is ours.
On the Saturday routing: Murphysboro runs 9:00 to 1:00 and De Soto starts at 1:00, so those two chain together cleanly if you go west first. Herrin’s 10:00 to 12:00 window sits inside the Murphysboro one, so you are picking, not combining. The three Saturday homes sit in three different directions out of Carbondale — Murphysboro west, De Soto north, Herrin northeast — so check the drive for yourself before you commit to a running order.
One House Is Open Both Days, and It Is One of Ours
1505 W Brewster Rd in Herrin is the only home on this list open Saturday and Sunday — 10:00 to 12:00 on Saturday, 1:00 to 3:00 on Sunday. It is listed at $329,900 for 4 bedrooms and 2,722 square feet on a one-acre lot, built in 1994, and it is listed by Shawnna Donovan, who we wrote about four days ago.
The detail worth knowing is its status: it is Coming Soon, not yet actively on the market. Across our entire four-county listing feed — 1,441 records — there are exactly two Coming Soon listings, and both are in Herrin. So this weekend is the first look at it for most buyers, before it joins the 427 active listings everyone is already scrolling through.
At $121 per square foot it is also the cheaper of the two expensive houses by that measure, which brings us to the oddest number on the list.
The Priciest House Per Square Foot Was Built in 1926
8193 Old Highway 13 in Murphysboro is the most expensive house open this weekend at $335,000, and at $186 per square foot it is also the most expensive per foot — by a wide margin over the $121 next to it. It is a 1926 house with 4 bedrooms and 1,800 square feet.
The explanation is in the lot: 6.67 acres. You are not paying $186 a foot for the house, you are paying for the ground and the house comes with it. That is worth saying plainly because per-square-foot comparisons quietly mislead whenever acreage is doing the work — the same trap we ran into at Lake of Egypt on Tuesday, where a 288-square-foot cabin priced above a waterfront house per foot.
At the other end, 709 N Locust St in Sesser is the cheapest house open this weekend at $99,900 and the cheapest per foot at $80, with 1,243 square feet — more space than the De Soto house at $125,000 and more than the Christopher house at $113,400.
Union County Has Nothing, and Its Search Page Does Not Admit It
This is worth showing because it is the sort of thing that wastes a Saturday. Union County has zero open houses this weekend. The county search returned a count of zero — and then served up 24 listing cards anyway. Of the twelve we could identify by address, eleven were in Missouri — Cape Girardeau, Jackson, Oak Ridge — and the twelfth was the Murphysboro house, which is in Jackson County, Illinois.
We check every address against the county and the state before anything goes on this list. If you search these yourself, do the same, because a listing across the river in Missouri will sit in a Union County result set looking perfectly local.
The Five, With the Details That Matter
1505 W Brewster Rd, Herrin — $329,900 OUR LISTING
4 bed · 2,722 sq ft · 1 acre · built 1994 · $121/sq ft · Coming Soon
Saturday 10:00 AM–12:00 PM and Sunday 1:00 PM–3:00 PM. The only home open both days, the largest on the list, and one of just two Coming Soon listings in our whole four-county feed. Listed by Shawnna Donovan, Southern Illinois Realty Experts.
8193 Old Highway 13, Murphysboro — $335,000
4 bed · 2 bath · 1,800 sq ft · 6.67 acres · built 1926 · $186/sq ft
Saturday 9:00 AM–1:00 PM. The most expensive house open this weekend and the most expensive per square foot, both because of the acreage rather than the house. The oldest home on the list, though only just — the Christopher house was built in 1930. Coldwell Banker DHH Realty.
105 N Lawrence St, De Soto — $125,000
3 bed · 1.5 bath · 1,120 sq ft · 0.26 acre · built 1992 · $112/sq ft
Saturday 1:00 PM–3:00 PM. The smallest house on the list, and the newest of the three priced under $130,000 — 1992, against 1930 in Christopher and a year the Sesser record does not publish. Starts exactly as the Murphysboro open house ends, which makes the pair a workable Saturday. CENTURY 21 House of Realty.
207 W Sylvia Ave, Christopher — $113,400
2 bed · 1 bath · 1,166 sq ft · built 1930 · $97/sq ft
Sunday — the record reads 1:00 AM to 3:00 PM. We are reproducing that as published rather than assuming which hour was meant; call first. A 1930 two-bedroom, and the second of two listings this weekend from the same agent. CENTURY 21 House of Realty.
709 N Locust St, Sesser — $99,900
2 bed · 1 bath · 1,243 sq ft · $80/sq ft
Sunday 1:00 PM–4:00 PM. The cheapest house open this weekend and the cheapest per square foot, with a three-hour window — second only to Murphysboro’s four hours. More floor space than either of the two homes priced above it. Home Sweet Home Real Estate Professionals.
🔮 What Greg Would Do With This Weekend
If you are shopping the middle of this market, skip the driving and book two private showings instead — the open-house list has nothing in your range and that is not going to change by Saturday. If you are shopping under $130,000, you have all three of them available but across both days: De Soto on Saturday afternoon, then Christopher and Sesser on Sunday. Their ages are all over the place: Christopher is a 1930 house, De Soto is 1992, and the Sesser record does not publish a year at all — so bring someone who can look at a roof and a foundation, and ask the Sesser agent when it was built. And if you want to see the Herrin house before it goes active, this weekend is the window.
🔑 Want to See Something That Is Not Open This Weekend?
Five open houses is five houses. There are hundreds for sale across these four counties, and a SIRE broker can get you inside any of them — on your schedule, not the seller’s. Tell us what you are looking for.
📱 Got a Question About This Market? Text Greg.
Buying? Selling? Not sure where to start? Text Greg Holthaus directly — just tell him you saw his blog. He'll help you think through your decision, match you with the best broker for your situation, and point you in the right direction. He's open to a text any time.
Text Greg · 618.925.8654
Who is Greg Holthaus?
Greg Holthaus is the Owner and Designated Managing Broker of Southern Illinois Realty Experts, with 25+ years in Southern Illinois real estate and more than 10,000 transactions closed. He leads a full-service operation — home sales, mortgage, title, and property management under one roof — with offices in Marion, Herrin, and Carbondale. Meet Greg ›
About this list: Open house dates and times come from local MLS listing data as published on each listing record, checked on October 1, 2026 for the weekend of October 3–4. Every address was verified to be in Illinois and in Williamson, Jackson, Franklin or Union County before inclusion, and each home’s time window was read from its own listing page rather than from a search result. County open-house searches are padded with out-of-area results, and this week the padding was extreme: the Union County search reported a count of zero and still returned 24 listing cards, of which the twelve identifiable by address were eleven Missouri homes and one in Jackson County, Illinois. One published time looks wrong and we have not corrected it: the Christopher listing gives its Sunday window as “1:00 AM to 3:00 PM”. We reproduce it as the record reads and will not guess at the intended hour. One figure was left out on purpose. For 1505 W Brewster Rd, our own brokerage record and the syndicated copy of the same listing disagree on the bathroom count, so we have published the bedroom count, square footage and lot size — which match exactly across both — and omitted the bath figure rather than pick one. Price-per-square-foot figures are calculated from the listed price and the published square footage, rounded to the nearest dollar; a per-foot figure says nothing about land, which is the whole point of the Murphysboro example. Square footage, lot size and year built are as published on the listing record and we have not independently verified them. Counts of our own active and Coming Soon listings come from a same-day pull of our brokerage feed across the four counties. Open houses get cancelled, rescheduled and added at short notice — call us before you drive and we will confirm. Listings are represented by various brokerages, and four of these five are not ours. Nothing here is an appraisal, a loan offer, or a rate quote. Southern Illinois Realty Experts is an Equal Housing Opportunity brokerage.