42428 County Road 48

This is a cabin of 560 square feet built in 1977 on 2.56 acres of woods on County Road 48 in the Deer Lake unorganized territory of Itasca County, Minnesota, about twelve miles north of Deer River. The listing gives two bedrooms, one bath, a wood stove, window air units, a sand point well, a mound septic, 100-amp electric service, a rented propane tank and a detached two-car garage, and the remarks say the parcel adjoins public land and that lakes are nearby. It was listed on September 14, 2026 at $115,000. The county record shows it sold for $40,000 in November 2011.

The cabin

The photos show a small gabled cabin with wood siding, a wall of tall windows on the front, a covered porch along one side with chairs, and an aluminum boat parked beside it in the yard. Inside, the living room has a wood stove on a brick hearth under a beamed pine ceiling, a ceiling fan, a television cabinet and a table, with sliding doors onto a deck. An enclosed porch with sliding windows on three sides holds a futon and a rug. The kitchen is a galley with oak cabinets, a black refrigerator and a range, with a table by the door. One bedroom has a bed and red curtains, the other a bunk bed and yellow curtains, and each is listed at eight by ten feet. A second sitting room has a futon, shelves and a hide on the wall. The bathroom has a toilet, a tub with a shower and a vanity.

The land

The aerial shows the cabin and the garage in a mowed clearing in the woods, with a large lake beyond the treeline to the north. The listing gives the lot as 245 by 627 by 202 by 489 feet and says it adjoins public land. The legal description runs the parcel to the centerline of County Road 48. Reverse geocoding the coordinates gives Itasca County and the Deer Lake unorganized territory, and the county’s parcel map draws one parcel of 2.5 acres.

The facts

What to know before you call

Inside the Chippewa National Forest, and outside the reservation. The coordinates fall inside the proclaimed boundary of the Chippewa National Forest, and the Forest Service ownership layer shows federal land within 300 meters, which fits the remark that the parcel adjoins public land. Much of the Deer River country also lies inside the Leech Lake Reservation, where land can be held in trust rather than in fee. This parcel does not: the Census Bureau’s federal reservation and off-reservation trust land layers return nothing at the point, so it is fee land outside the boundary. Ask for a survey that shows which side touches the forest, because national forest on the line means public hunters on the line every November.

Shoreland without the shore. Little Bowstring Lake, 328 acres and classed recreational development by Itasca County, lies about 780 feet from the parcel line, and the county’s shoreland district map, which runs 1,000 feet from the lake, takes in part of the parcel. Minnesota’s shoreland rules govern lot size, setbacks, impervious cover and septic placement inside that band, and the county administers them. The parcel has no frontage, so there is no dock and no lake access except the public ones. Ask the county which corner of the parcel is inside the district and what that means for an addition, a second building or a replacement septic.

A sand point well. The water is a sand point, a pipe driven into shallow sand rather than a drilled and cased well. They are cheap, shallow and open to whatever is in the top of the water table. Minnesota requires a well disclosure at every sale, so ask for the certificate, the well’s depth and age, and a water test for bacteria, nitrate and arsenic. Ask whether a mound septic 780 feet from a lake and a shallow well on the same 2.5 acres keep the setback the county requires between them.

A mound septic in a shoreland district. The sewer is a mound, the system Minnesota uses where the soil will not take a drainfield. Ask for the county permit and the last compliance inspection, and ask whether Itasca County requires a compliance inspection at transfer, because a failed mound is a rebuild, not a repair.

Three tax figures. The listing says $627. The county record shows $708 for 2026, $736 for 2025 and $652 for 2024. Zillow prints $655 for 2025. Minnesota values every property at market every year and bills in arrears, so the figure on the listing is a past year and none of them is yours. The county classes the cabin as seasonal recreational residential, the cabin class, which pays the state general tax and gets no homestead exclusion. A buyer who lives here would apply for homestead, which removes 40 percent of the first $95,000 of value from the tax base and takes the state general tax off. A buyer who keeps it as a cabin inherits the seasonal class as it stands. Ask the county for the current statement and figure both cases.

No forest programs to carry. The county classification is seasonal recreational residential, not 2c managed forest, and 2.5 acres is under the minimum for the Sustainable Forest Incentive Act, so there is no covenant period and no payback on this parcel.

Sold for $40,000 in 2011, asking $115,000. The public record shows a sale at $40,000 in November 2011, at the end of three years of listings that started at $92,500 in 2008. The listing describes no work since. Ask what has been done to a 1977 cabin in fifteen years, because the price is nearly three times the last one and the photos show the same stove, the same paneling and the same cabinets a 2011 buyer would have seen.

Rented tank, plowing not stated. The propane tank is rented, so it stays with the supplier and the contract, not the cabin. The road is a county road, which the county maintains, but the listing does not say whether it is plowed to this driveway or where the plow turns around. Ask Itasca County Road and Bridge, and ask the supplier what the tank rental costs and whether they deliver in winter.

Five hundred sixty square feet, and the porch. The listed rooms add up to 436 square feet without the bath and hall, and the listing counts a porch of 192 square feet on top. The photos show an enclosed porch with sliding windows and a covered open porch outside. Ask which one the 8 by 24 is, whether it is heated, and whether the county counts it in the 560.

Sixteen photos, the broker’s full set. Zillow and Redfin carry the same 16 photographs and we used all of them. There is no photo of the well, the mound, the deck from outside, the garage interior, the road or the boundary with the forest. Nothing is virtually staged.

You can see everything else we have listed on the properties page. This is our first Minnesota property. For other cabins on the edge of federal forest we have a camp on 40 acres inside the Ottawa National Forest near Ewen, Michigan and a 528-square-foot off-grid cabin inside the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest at Long Lake, Wisconsin.

To ask about this one, call David Ritter at MN Lakeshore Properties on 218-360-1200 and reference MLS 7144013. Tell them where you saw it.