1521 Manor Ave

A 1939 brick house on the corner of Manor and Union in McKeesport, 2,378 square feet on three floors, listed as five bedrooms and three full baths at $99,500, sold as-is. The listing says it needs significant rehabilitation and is best suited to investors and contractors. Allegheny County records the house with two bedrooms and two baths, in fair condition, and last sold at $42,000 in June 2023. It went on the market in August at $135,000 and has been cut twice. The tax bill is $1,743 a year now and was a fraction of that a few years ago. The broker’s gallery is 23 photos, all of them small, and that is the whole set.

The lot and setting

The listing gives 6,547 square feet, one parcel. Allegheny County has it at 6,545 square feet, 55 feet of frontage by 119 deep, lot 269 in the Library Manor plan, McKeesport Ward 7, McKeesport Area School District. The two agree. The lot is a corner, which the remarks lead with, and the photos show a mown lawn, hedges, a concrete drive and a brick garage.

Parking is two spaces in an attached garage per the listing. The county records a detached brick garage. The photos show the garage roofed against the side of the house at the drive. The listing lists public transportation as a community feature. Water and sewer are public. No HOA.

The house

Built in 1939, brick, three stories per the listing and two and a half per the county, under a slate roof. Two decorative fireplaces per the listing, one per the county. Hardwood, tile and carpet floors, multi-pane windows, an unfinished basement with interior entry. Appliances are listed as some electric appliances and a stove. Heating is not on the listing. The county says central, and the photos show cast iron radiators in most rooms. Cooling is not listed.

The photos show an entry hall with an iron-railed stair, a dining room with a fireplace and plaster peeling off the ceiling, a sunroom with a bay of windows, a den with a built-in bookcase, and a kitchen with an electric range and a run of older cabinets. Upstairs are a hall with hardwood floors, a bedroom with its own fireplace and bay, three more bedrooms, and two baths, one with cracked plaster over a pedestal sink. A stair leads to a third floor with a red-walled room and a bath with a tub under a dormer.

That is six rooms that read as bedrooms and three baths in the photos. The listing counts five and three. The county counts two and two, with seven rooms in all.

Nothing in the gallery shows the basement, the furnace or boiler, the electrical panel, the roof, or the rear of the house. The copper hood over the front door that the remarks call a copper-accented entry does appear in the first photo.

The facts

What to know before you call

The tax bill, and what changed. Zillow’s public tax history shows this house paying $61 a year in 2019, 2020 and 2021 and $172 in 2022 and 2023, then $1,681 in 2024 and $1,739 in 2025. Redfin’s county record shows $521 to $850 for those earlier years and $1,681 from 2022. The two disagree on the past and agree on the present: the bill is $1,743 now. A jump like that reads as an exemption or abatement ending, and the county record adds a second change, the building assessment nearly doubling from $14,300 to $32,300 in 2022. Ask the Allegheny County treasurer and the McKeesport tax office what changed, whether any exemption was tied to the former owner, and whether $1,743 is the figure a new owner inherits. On a $36,400 assessment that bill works out to about 4.8 percent of assessed value a year.

Allegheny County’s base year, and what a sale triggers. Allegheny County assesses every property at its 2012 base-year value and has not reassessed county-wide since. Assessments move only on appeal, and school districts in the county file appeals on recently sold houses when the sale price, adjusted by the county’s common level ratio, comes out above the current assessment. A sale near $99,500 against a $36,400 assessment is the kind of gap that draws one. Ask whether the McKeesport Area School District has appealed this parcel before, and budget for a higher assessment after closing.

Five bedrooms and three baths on the listing, two and two at the county. The county has this house at two bedrooms and two baths with seven rooms. The listing says five and three. The photos show six rooms that could be bedrooms and three bathrooms, one of them on a finished third floor. On a house being sold as-is for a full rehab, the difference is not a typo. Ask when the third floor was finished and the third bath was added, and whether the city permitted the work, because unpermitted rooms and baths affect what a lender will count, what an appraiser will credit, and what you can sell later.

What the photos leave out. No basement, no furnace or boiler, no electrical panel, no roof, no rear of the house. On a property the listing itself says needs significant rehabilitation, those are the five things that set the budget. A slate roof on a 1939 house and cast iron radiators on a boiler of unknown age are either the best parts of the house or the most expensive, and nothing in the gallery says which. Ask for the age of the boiler, the service size, the plumbing material and the last time the slate was worked on, and bring an inspector who will go into the basement.

Condition is visible in what is shown. Plaster is off the dining room ceiling and cracked over a bathroom sink. Carpet covers the first floor and one bedroom. The kitchen is original or close to it. The county’s own condition field reads fair. Sold as-is means the seller will not fix any of it.

The price against the last sale. It sold for $42,000 in June 2023 and is asking $99,500 after two cuts from $135,000, with no updates named in the remarks. Nothing in the listing supports the number, and the listing offers no comparable sales. Ask the agent for the sales the price is based on and for any work done since 2023.

A rental pitch with no numbers. The remarks offer it as a long-term investment. The listing gives no rent, no expense figures, no occupancy history and no rental license status. Ask McKeesport what a rental registration requires, and run your own numbers with the $1,743 tax bill and a full rehab in them.

Liens and delinquencies. On an as-is house with a tax history this irregular, ask the county treasurer, the city and the school district for a current tax certification and check for municipal liens and code violations before you write an offer. A title search will find recorded liens. It will not find a water bill.

Attached or detached. The listing says attached garage. The county says detached brick garage. The photo shows the garage roofed against the house. Ask which the deed and the insurance treat it as.

Twenty-three photos. That is the broker’s full gallery, every photo is 1,024 pixels wide, and the images here are as soft as the source. The house is empty in all of them.

You can see everything else we have listed on the properties page. Also in Pennsylvania we have a furnished cabin on 5.88 acres above Pine Creek in Wellsboro, and for another house priced for the work it needs, a 1935 farmhouse and a 60 by 43 shop in Goldsboro, North Carolina.

To ask about this one, call Shane Kunkle on 412-660-9877 and reference MLS 1767923. The listing prints the same number for the brokerage. Tell them where you saw it.