Sell your house fast in Richmond Hill, Queens.

Richmond Hill is two neighborhoods that share a name. North of Jamaica Avenue, on the hill below Forest Park, it is one of the oldest planned suburbs in Queens, laid out in the 1870s, with big Victorian frame houses on wide lots, wraparound porches, turrets, and the J train running above Jamaica Avenue. South of the tracks, along Liberty Avenue and 101st Avenue down to the A train, it is South Richmond Hill, two and three family brick and frame houses with a driveway, the center of the city’s Indo Caribbean community, and a cellar apartment in nearly every house. The two halves have different buyers, different problems and different prices, and we buy in both.

The typical single family home value in Richmond Hill is around $805,000, up roughly 4.5% over the past year, with houses averaging about 93 days on the market.

The Victorian that needs everything at once

The houses north of Jamaica Avenue are 1890s and 1900s wood frames, three stories, with a porch, a slate roof, a dozen rooms and a cellar with a stone foundation. The ones that have been maintained are among the best houses in Queens. The ones that have not carry a list a lender’s inspector fills four pages with: a slate roof with missing pieces, knob and tube on all three floors, a porch that is pulling away, a boiler from the 1970s, an oil tank in the yard, and lead paint everywhere. A financed buyer loves the house and loses the deal at the inspection. We buy Victorians as they stand, price the whole list in the offer, and restore them ourselves.

The two family with the cellar apartment

South Richmond Hill has thousands of two families with a finished cellar, a kitchen, a separate door and a tenant. A cellar, more than half below the curb, is almost never a legal apartment in New York City. The appraiser notes it, the lender wants it removed or documented, and the deal ends in its fourth week. A complaint adds a Department of Buildings violation and sometimes a vacate order. We buy the house as its legal units, price the cellar as a cellar, and the tenant and the city’s file come with the house to us at closing.

Foreclosures, filed in Queens Supreme Court

Richmond Hill was hit hard in 2008 and parts of it never fully recovered. Mortgages taken out in 2005 and 2006, modified once or twice, and now in default again are common on both sides of Jamaica Avenue. New York foreclosure is a court process, Queens is one of the slowest counties in the country, and that delay is the opening. A house with a default and a referee’s sale somewhere ahead still has equity in it. A cash closing before the sale date pays the lender, stops the interest and the legal fees, and keeps the rest yours.

Estates with heirs on Long Island and in Florida

The other common call is a parent’s house. Bought in 1965, paid off in 1990, never changed. The children are in Nassau, Suffolk or Florida, there is a Queens Surrogate’s Court file, and the house is full. Agents want it emptied and painted before photos. We buy it as it sits, belongings included, we wait for the letters, and the heirs sign from wherever they live.

Where listing still wins in Richmond Hill

A restored Victorian on the hill, or a renovated two family south of the tracks with legal units and a tenant paying market rent, should be listed, and we will say so. Where a cash sale wins is the Victorian with the four page inspection, the cellar apartment the appraiser will flag, the mortgage in default, the estate full of belongings, the tenant in Housing Court, or the owner with a date that cannot move.

What we buy in Richmond Hill

Victorian frames north of Jamaica Avenue, two and three families in South Richmond Hill, houses with a cellar apartment, an oil tank or an open Department of Buildings violation, houses in foreclosure, estates in any condition, mixed use buildings on Liberty and Jamaica Avenues, and vacant lots. We do not buy cooperative apartments. If you own something unusual, call anyway.

North of the tracks and south of them: two markets, two offers

The J train on Jamaica Avenue is the line. North of it, the Victorians on the hill are priced like houses in Kew Gardens and sell to families who want twelve rooms and a porch, and the risk in them is the age of everything. South of it, the two and three families along Liberty and 101st Avenues are priced like investment buildings and sell on the rent, and the risk in them is the cellar apartment, the Department of Buildings file and the tenant. We buy on both sides, and the offer is built from sales on your side of Jamaica Avenue, not from an average of two zip codes that have little to do with each other.

What both sides share is the 2006 mortgage. Richmond Hill had some of the highest foreclosure rates in the city after 2008, and a great many of those loans are still on the books, modified, in default again, and somewhere on the Queens Supreme Court calendar. If that is your house, the earlier the call the more of the equity survives.

Water bills, violations, and the liens the city attaches

New York City attaches water and sewer charges to the house, not the owner, and a two family where a cellar tenant has run the water for years can carry a Department of Environmental Protection balance in the thousands with a lien sale behind it. Environmental Control Board fines for a sidewalk, a dumpster or a missing boiler inspection attach the same way. Add an open Department of Buildings permit from a 1990s cellar job that was never closed out, and a title company has a page of items to clear before any lender will fund. We buy with all of it open. The balances come out of the purchase price at closing, itemized on the offer before you sign, and the open permits and violations become ours to close after the deed records.

Looking just beyond Richmond Hill? You can also sell your house fast in Kew Gardens NY or sell a house fast in Jamaica NY, and you can read about how we buy houses in Forest Hills NY.

Many Richmond Hill homeowners also ask us how to sell a hoarder house, sell a house in foreclosure, or sell an inherited home.