Almost worth moving to the USA  

Closer to EAST St. Louis.
Not the same thing at all.
Here's a cheaply built modernist tract home -- one of about 11,000 built by Joseph Eichler. It's a little smaller than that Belleville house, on a lot that's only slightly larger, with the same number of beds/baths, and it was built at around the same time... But it's in a different location.
Compare and contrast:
http://www.californiamoves.com/Property/PropertyDetails.aspx?PropertyID=...

off subject: interestingly...
off subject: interestingly they were more images showing the interior on such a beautiful house. Some peole just don't get it!
give me 225k home and I'll spend the balance of $1.124mil on retirement
why the expanse in difference?

And I live
"Closer" to NORTH Philly.
Big freaking deal.

Woodywood
East St. Louis is the name of a city; it's not a geographical portion of the city called St. Louis.
St. Louis's violent-crime rate is right up there with cities like Compton, Baltimore, and Washington DC, but it can't hold a candle to East St. Louis: In 2006, when there were around 40 murders per 100K people in St. Louis, there were OVER A HUNDRED per 100K in East St. Louis. 250+ rapes per 100K in East St. Louis, too.
In the same year, Palo Alto -- a city with twice the population of East St. Louis -- reported zero homicides and a total of three rapes and attempted rapes.
So, yeah, it is a big freaking deal. Did you think that housing was so cheap there because of the SNOW?
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,957921,00.html

Sorry, I still don't see your point
Belleville, IL is >10 miles away from East St.,Louis.
The town I live in is ~5 miles away from North Philly. (Philadelphia has a murder rate of ~30, largely weighted by areas such as North Philly, so I would venture to guess that North Philly is probably ~40 if we're engaging in a homicidal pissing contest).
The "desirability" of a location in urban/metropolitan areas is more often determined on a scale of blocks, not miles. Gentrification much?
So the question remains.... What's Belleville like?

Woodywood
My point isn't that Belleville is as bad as East St. Louis; I'm just saying that no matter how nice it is, its proximity to that horribly blighted community affects its property values.
Belleville and East St. Louis are both in St. Clair County. In 2007, before the recession, the poverty rate in that county was over 15% and median household income was $46K. Houses in even the most gentrified pocket of an area like that simply can't be as valuable as those in a location like Palo Alto, in the similarly-named Santa Clara County. In 2007, the poverty rate in Santa Clara County was 8.3% and median household income was $84K. That's a big difference.
Also, people who buy houses usually take out decades-long mortgage loans, so they need to know that jobs will be easily available to them. The St. Louis metro area, where Belleville residents presumably work, has about one employer per 100 people (26K employers for a population of 2.8 million) and supports about 40K sole proprieters and partnerships.
The San Jose metro area, where Palo Alto residents work if they're not working in San Francisco, has about one employer for every 40 people (42K employers for a population of 1.8 million) and supports nearly 120K sole proprieters and partnerships.
Clearly, with 2.5 times as many employers per person and 3 times as many opportunities to work for yourself, the job market in Palo Alto's metro area is significantly better than in Belleville's.
And... People who buy 4-bedroom houses often have children; they want those children to attend decent schools. Most kids go to public schools, which are funded by tax dollars, and most of those dollars come from businesses.
Schools in St. Clair County, Illinois, don't get tax money from St. Louis; they get it from EAST St. Louis and from the other towns in the county... Which is why proximity to poverty-stricken cities matters even if your own city is relatively well-off.
Belleville's county has one tax-revenue-generating business for every 16 residents. Palo Alto's has one for every 12 residents, including a couple dozen of the most profitable corporations on the planet. With that much money coming in, it's hard NOT to have good infrastructure and schools.
So does that kind of explain why houses in the Illinois county that includes East St. Louis and Belleville might cost less than houses in the California county that includes Palo Alto (Hewlett-Packard), Redwood City (Oracle), Cupertino (Apple), Santa Clara (Intel), San Jose (Cisco), and Mountain View (Google)?
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=St.+Clair+County+Illinois+Santa+Cla...

WoofWoof
You missed the scalloped valances over the windows. . .and the "antique" lighting !