Sell your house fast in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

Bay Ridge is the neighborhood at the southwest corner of Brooklyn, on the bluff above the Narrows with the Verrazzano Bridge at the end of it. It was built between 1900 and 1940 for people who wanted a house with a view and a short ride on the R train, and the houses are brick and limestone rows between Ridge Boulevard and 3rd Avenue, detached houses with lawns on the blocks near Shore Road, and brick two families along 4th and 5th Avenues down to Fort Hamilton. The Norwegian, Irish and Italian families who bought them are estates now, with children on Staten Island and in New Jersey, and the buyers are Arab, Chinese and Russian families who want a house with a driveway in a neighborhood that feels like a town. Most of Bay Ridge’s housing is co-op apartments, which we do not buy. The houses are what we buy.

The typical home value in Bay Ridge is around $1,465,000, up roughly 8.1% over the past year, with houses averaging about 64 days on the market.

The row house a parent bought in 1956 and never changed

The most common Bay Ridge call is an estate. A brick or limestone row bought in 1956 or 1963, paid off in 1985, kept exactly as it was: the original kitchen, a bathroom with 1950s tile, a cellar finished in the 1970s, a boiler nursed along for thirty years, and sixty years of belongings in every closet. The children are on Staten Island, in Monmouth County or in Florida, there is a Kings County 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.

The cellar apartment, and the garage that became one

A great many Bay Ridge cellars have a kitchen, a bathroom and a tenant, and the garages under the 1930s rows have been converted too. A cellar is almost never a legal apartment in New York City and a garage apartment never is. The appraiser notes it, the lender wants it removed or documented, and the financed deal ends in its fourth week. We buy the house as its legal units, price the cellar and the garage as what they are, and the tenant and any Department of Buildings file come with the house to us.

Two families with a tenant who stopped paying

The two families along 4th and 5th Avenues and the side streets off them are mostly owner occupied with a tenant upstairs, or owned by a family that moved to Staten Island and kept the house for the income. A tenant who stopped paying, a rent set in 2015, a Housing Court case adjourned four times, and a roof and a boiler due the same winter. Brooklyn Housing Court takes most of a year. We buy occupied houses with the case open, at the rent actually coming in, and the eviction becomes ours at closing.

The house with the view and the four page inspection

The detached houses on the Shore Road blocks are the best addresses in Bay Ridge and the oldest, many from before 1920, with slate roofs, stone foundations that take water from the bluff, knob and tube on the upper floors, and an oil tank in the yard. A financed buyer loves the view and loses the deal at the inspection, when the lender wants the wiring replaced and the tank pulled. We buy them as they stand, price the whole list in the offer, and do the work after closing.

Where listing still wins in Bay Ridge

A renovated limestone with legal units near Ridge Boulevard, or a detached house on a Shore Road block with a new roof and no deadline, should be listed, and we will say so. Bay Ridge has buyers lined up for a house a lender will finance. Where a cash sale wins is the estate full of belongings, the cellar or garage apartment the appraiser will flag, the tenant in Housing Court, the old house with the four page inspection, or the owner with a closing date in Florida that cannot move.

What we buy in Bay Ridge

Brick and limestone row houses, detached and semi attached houses near Shore Road and Fort Hamilton, two and three families along 4th and 5th Avenues, houses with a cellar or garage apartment, mixed use buildings on 3rd and 5th Avenues with a store below, estates in any condition, houses in foreclosure, and vacant lots. We do not buy cooperative apartments. If you own something unusual, call anyway.

The Ridge, the avenues, and Fort Hamilton

Bay Ridge is priced by the distance from the water. The blocks between Shore Road and Ridge Boulevard, with the detached houses and the views, are the top of the market and sell to families who will restore them. The limestone and brick rows between Ridge Boulevard and 4th Avenue are the center, priced on the block and the condition. The two families along 4th and 5th Avenues and the streets near the R train are priced on the rent and the noise. Fort Hamilton, down by the bridge and the base, is its own pocket with smaller houses and military families coming and going. We buy on all of them and the offer is built from sales on your blocks, with the comparable addresses on the sheet.

What every block shares is age. Almost nothing in Bay Ridge was built after 1940, and a house that has not been renovated carries the same list no matter the street: original plaster, a service panel from the 1950s, galvanized water lines, a flat or slate roof with layers or missing pieces, a cellar that takes water from the bluff, and in the older houses an oil tank in the yard. A lender’s inspector writes it all down. We read the same list and price it, and the house closes anyway.

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 1970s 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 Bay Ridge? You can also sell your house fast in Bensonhurst NY or sell a house fast in Sunset Park NY, and you can read about how we buy houses in Staten Island NY.

Many Bay Ridge homeowners also ask us how to sell a house with a tax lien in Bay Ridge NY, sell a water damaged house, or sell a fire damaged house.