Sell your house fast in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn.

Cypress Hills is the neighborhood on the hill at the eastern edge of Brooklyn, between East New York and the Queens line, with the J train on Jamaica Avenue along the top, the A and C under Fulton Street, Highland Park and the old Ridgewood Reservoir above, and the cemetery belt on the north side where Brooklyn turns into Queens. It was built between 1880 and 1920, frame two and three families on 20 foot lots, some of them the oldest wood houses still standing in the borough, with brick rows along Atlantic Avenue and the blocks toward Fulton. It was German and Italian, then Puerto Rican and Dominican, and it is Dominican, Ecuadorian, Guyanese and Bangladeshi now, with investors from Queens buying the three families for the rents. The frame houses are the issue in every sale. A hundred and thirty year old wood house with vinyl over the clapboard and a cellar that was never meant to be lived in will not pass a lender’s inspection, and the owner who has lived in it since 1985 does not have the money to make it.

The typical home value in Cypress Hills is around $755,000, up roughly 5.7% over the past year, with houses averaging about 62 days on the market.

The 1895 frame three family with vinyl over the clapboard

The most common Cypress Hills call is a frame house bought in the 1980s or 1990s when nobody wanted them, held through everything, and never renovated. Vinyl siding over clapboard over whatever was underneath, a flat roof with six layers, knob and tube behind the plaster on the top floor, a cellar with a dirt floor and a tenant, a boiler from 1990, galvanized pipes, and a fire escape the Department of Buildings has written up twice. A financed buyer’s inspector writes five pages. The lender wants the wiring and the fire escape done first. We buy the house as it stands, price the list, and do the work after closing.

Three families, three tenants, two of them not paying

The value in a Cypress Hills house is the units, and the problem is usually who is in them. A second floor tenant since 2003 at a 2010 rent, a top floor tenant who stopped paying after the pandemic, a Brooklyn Housing Court case adjourned since the spring, and a cousin in the cellar. We buy occupied, on the rents actually arriving, with the case open and transferring to us, and the cellar priced as a cellar.

The house up the hill by Highland Park

The blocks up the hill toward Highland Park and the reservoir, along Highland Boulevard and the streets off it, have bigger houses on bigger lots with a view back over Brooklyn, and they are priced differently from the frame rows below. An estate there, bought in the 1960s and untouched, is a house a renovator wants, and the offer reflects the lot and the view as much as the house.

The deed from 1989 and the title problems nobody fixed

Cypress Hills houses changed hands informally for decades. A deed in a dead parent’s name, a brother added in 1995 who moved to the Dominican Republic, a mortgage from a lender that no longer exists and was never satisfied of record, a judgment from 2008 against a former owner with the same last name. A title company finds all of it and a lender will not fund until it is cleared. We buy with the title problems open, our title company clears them, and the cost comes out at closing rather than stopping the sale.

Where listing still wins in Cypress Hills

A renovated brick row with legal units and no deadline should be listed, and we will say so. Investors from Queens bid for them. Where a cash sale wins is the frame house with the five page inspection, the three family with two tenants not paying, the cellar with a cousin, the deed with a dead parent’s name on it, or the owner who needs it done by a date.

What we buy in Cypress Hills

Frame and brick two to four families, houses up the hill by Highland Park, mixed use buildings on Fulton Street, Jamaica Avenue and Atlantic Avenue, houses with tenants in Housing Court, houses with title problems, estates in any condition, houses in foreclosure, and vacant lots. We do not buy cooperative apartments. If you own something unusual, call anyway.

Below Fulton, between Fulton and Jamaica, and up the hill

Cypress Hills is priced by elevation. Below Fulton Street toward Atlantic Avenue, the brick rows and frame houses are priced like East New York and sell to investors from Queens on the rents. Between Fulton and Jamaica Avenue, the frame two and three families on the named streets, Chestnut, Hemlock, Autumn, Crescent, are the center of the market, priced on the units and the condition. Up the hill above Jamaica Avenue toward Highland Park and the reservoir, the lots are bigger and the houses are priced on the view and the lot. We build the offer from sales on your side of each line, with the comparable addresses on the sheet, and we show you which band your house is in before we show you the number.

What the bands share is the 1890s frame. A Cypress Hills house that was never renovated carries the same list: vinyl over clapboard over whatever was underneath, a flat roof with six layers, knob and tube behind the plaster, a cellar with a dirt floor and a tenant, galvanized pipes, a boiler from 1990, and a fire escape the city has written up. A financed buyer’s inspector produces five pages of it. We read the five pages as numbers and the house still closes.

Administration, intestacy and the deed that never moved

When an owner dies without a will in Brooklyn, the house passes by the state’s rules, the estate goes through administration in Kings County Surrogate’s Court, and every heir under those rules has to sign or waive. A house that has sat in a dead parent’s name for years is not unsellable. It needs an estate attorney, a petition, a few months, and a buyer who will write the offer now and wait for the letters. That is what we do. The cost of clearing the deed comes out at closing rather than being money the family has to find first.

Looking just beyond Cypress Hills? You can also sell your house fast in East New York NY or sell a house fast in Bushwick NY, and you can read about how we buy houses in Woodhaven NY.

Many Cypress Hills homeowners also ask us how to sell a house fast when relocating, sell a house in probate, or sell a hoarder house.