Islip, Long Island, NY
Sell your house fast in Islip, Long Island.
We buy Islip houses as is for cash. Flood zone property, canal front homes, failing cesspools, unpermitted apartments, any condition.
$690,000
Typical Islip home value
34 days
Avg market days
+5.3%
YoY change
Typical value from the Zillow Home Value Index for single family homes, September 2026. Days on market from Realtor.com. These are market figures, not an EZ Home Buyers offer.
About the area
Why Islip sellers call us.
Islip was settled in the 1680s when William Nicoll bought a stretch of the south shore from the Secatogue, and the hamlet that carries the name is still built around that geography. Montauk Highway runs through the middle of it. North of the highway you find older colonials and capes on modest lots, a good deal of it built between the 1920s and the 1950s. South of it the land flattens out toward the Great South Bay, the streets end in canals and bulkheads, and the housing gets both more valuable and more complicated. The hamlet also sits inside the Town of Islip, which is a separate thing from the hamlet, and that confusion shows up on tax bills and in permit searches more often than you would think.
The typical single family home value in Islip is around $690,000, up roughly 5.3% over the past year, with houses averaging about 34 days on the market.
Flood zones, and what Sandy left behind
A large share of the housing south of Montauk Highway sits in a FEMA designated flood zone. That one fact changes how a house sells. A financed buyer needs flood insurance, the lender needs an elevation certificate to price it, and if the certificate shows the lowest floor below base flood elevation the annual premium can run into five figures. Buyers who were ready to make an offer walk away when they see that number.
Sandy made it worse in a way that still has not fully washed out. Houses that took water in 2012 were repaired on a spectrum, some with permits and engineering, some with a contractor and cash. Some owners took NY Rising money and elevated. Some took the money and did part of the work. Twelve years on, the paperwork trail is thin and the town record frequently does not match the building. Lenders will not fund past that gap.
We buy in the flood zone, elevated or not, repaired on permit or not. There is no lender behind us, so there is no elevation certificate to produce and no insurance quote that has to come back acceptable.
Canal front houses, bulkheads and docks
The canals off the bay are what make the south end of Islip desirable, and they are also where the expensive problems live. A bulkhead has a service life, and a failing one is a structural repair measured in tens of thousands of dollars, sometimes well past that if the sheeting and tiebacks have gone. Docks and floats often predate any permit the town can locate. Some canal lots have been bulkheaded by three different owners in three different decades with three different materials.
A buyer with a mortgage brings an engineer who writes all of that up, and then the deal becomes a negotiation about who funds the bulkhead. We buy with the bulkhead as it stands, price it into the offer, and show you that line so you can see what we did.
Cesspools, and the Suffolk County problem nobody plans for
Most of Islip is not on sewers. Suffolk County has several hundred thousand parcels on cesspools and septic systems, and the county Department of Health Services has been tightening the rules for years because of nitrogen in the groundwater and in the bay. For a seller, the practical issue is simpler. A cesspool that has worked quietly for forty years can fail during a sale, and a financed buyer’s lender will not fund a house with a failed system.
Replacement is not cheap, and in some situations the county will require an advanced treatment system rather than a like for like swap, which costs substantially more. Owners rarely know how old their system is or exactly where it sits. We buy on cesspool and septic, including systems that have failed and systems nobody can locate.
Mother daughter apartments that were never filed
Accessory apartments are common across the Town of Islip and a great many of them are not on the record. A basement kitchen put in for a parent in 1988. A second floor made into a rental after the kids moved out. The town requires a permit for an accessory apartment and the certificate of occupancy has to describe the house as it actually is.
When an appraiser counts a second kitchen or a second electric meter, the lender wants the certificate of occupancy reconciled before it funds, and legalizing work done decades ago means a town file search, possibly an architect, possibly a variance, and months you do not have. We buy the house as it actually stands. If there is an apartment in it, that becomes our problem at closing.
Probate, and the Suffolk County Surrogate’s Court
A large share of the houses we buy in Islip come out of estates, and the part that surprises families is that the court is not local. Suffolk County Surrogate’s Court sits in Riverhead, about forty minutes east, and every estate in the county passes through it. If there is a will, the executor petitions for letters testamentary. If there is no will, somebody petitions for letters of administration, which requires notifying the distributees and is slower when the family is spread out or not speaking.
Until those letters issue, nobody has authority to sign a deed. That is the piece people get wrong. Heirs will accept an offer, start cleaning out the house, and then discover the closing cannot happen for another two or three months. Meanwhile the taxes, the insurance and the heat keep running on a house nobody lives in, and a vacant house on the south shore through a winter is a house with a frozen pipe waiting to happen.
We can put a property under contract while probate is still pending and close once the letters are in hand. You are not paying us to wait, and you are not holding the property open market while the court works through its calendar. If you are earlier than that and still deciding, our pages on selling a house in probate and selling an inherited home set out the sequence.
What we buy in Islip
Colonials and capes on the blocks north of Montauk Highway. Canal front houses with sound bulkheads and with failing ones. Property in the FEMA flood zone, elevated and not. Houses on cesspool and septic, including failed systems. Houses with a buried oil tank still in the ground, which is common here and a routine reason financed deals die. Estates where the heirs live out of state and the house has sat through a winter. Houses with tenants in place, paying or not paying.
What we do not buy is condominium or co-op units. If that is what you have, we will say so in the first minute rather than waste your week.
How to reach us
Call (516) 964-7222 or send the address through the form on this page. You get a written cash offer within 24 hours with the reasoning shown line by line, it stays open for seven days, and you pick the closing date. More on how we buy houses across Long Island and on our how it works page. If a foreclosure is driving the timeline, read the Long Island foreclosure timeline first so you know how much room you actually have.
Looking just beyond Islip? You can also sell your house fast in Bay Shore NY or sell a house fast in Central Islip NY, and you can read about how we buy houses in Patchogue NY.
Many Islip homeowners also ask us how to sell a house with a tax lien in Islip NY, sell a water damaged house, or sell a fire damaged house.
How a sale like this goes in Islip
A Canal House on the Islip South Shore, Sold After Two Buyers Lost Their Flood Insurance Quotes
She and her husband bought the canal house in 1991 and raised two daughters in it. Sandy put twenty two inches of water through the first floor in 2012. They gutted and rebuilt that winter with a contractor a neighbor recommended, paid cash for most of it, and never pulled a permit, because at the time half the street was doing the same thing and the priority was getting back in before Christmas.
Her husband died in 2023. She decided in the spring that the house was too much, the dock was too much, and she wanted to be near her daughter in North Carolina.
She listed in April. The first buyer was approved and enthusiastic. Then the lender asked for an elevation certificate, the surveyor produced one showing the lowest floor well below base flood elevation, and the flood insurance quote came back at a number that took their monthly payment past what they had been approved for. They withdrew in six weeks.
The second buyer got further. Their engineer went under the back of the house, found the 2013 framing and wiring, and found nothing in the Town of Islip file describing any of it. The lender wanted the certificate of occupancy reconciled. Then the same engineer put a probe on the bulkhead and reported that the tiebacks on the eastern forty feet were gone.
That contract ended in August. By then she had been paying taxes, insurance and maintenance on a house she had already mentally left.
Nick York walked the property in late August, went under the addition, looked at the bulkhead from the water, and wrote the offer the next day with three separate lines: the bulkhead, the unpermitted 2013 rebuild, and the elevation issue.
They closed in eleven days. She signed in her attorney's office in Hauppauge, left the dock furniture, and drove south the following week.
Illustrative. Based on the situations we buy in across Islip. A composite, not a single transaction, with details changed.
Common reasons Islip sellers call us.
Flood insurance killed your buyer
An elevation certificate showing the lowest floor below base flood elevation can push the premium into five figures. We do not need flood insurance to buy.
Sandy repairs that were never permitted
Work done in 2012 and 2013 often has no paper trail, so the town record does not match the house. A lender cannot fund past that. We can.
A bulkhead at the end of its life
A failing canal bulkhead is a five figure structural repair and the first thing an engineer writes up. We buy it as it stands.
A cesspool that failed mid sale
Suffolk County may require an advanced treatment system rather than a simple replacement. We price it in and keep going.
A basement apartment nobody filed
Accessory apartments are everywhere in the Town of Islip and rarely on the certificate of occupancy. That becomes ours at closing.
A buried oil tank still in the ground
Common on the older blocks and a routine reason a financed Long Island deal collapses. We buy with the tank in place.
Tenants you cannot move
A retail buyer needs the house delivered vacant, which puts a Suffolk County eviction on you. We buy occupied.
An estate you are managing from another state
Waterfront property deteriorates fast when nobody opens it. We buy as the house sits, contents included.
Frequently asked questions about selling in Islip.
How do I sell my house fast in Islip?
Call (516) 964-7222 or send the address through the form on this page. We look at the property, give you a written cash offer within 24 hours with the reasoning shown, and you pick the closing date, usually seven to fourteen days out. No agents, no repairs, no commissions, no inspection contingency.
My house is in a flood zone. Will that stop the sale?
Not with us. It frequently stops a financed sale, because the lender needs an elevation certificate and the buyer needs flood insurance, and if the lowest floor sits below base flood elevation the premium can be enormous. We buy in the flood zone and we do not need either document.
We took water in Sandy and the repairs were never permitted. Can we still sell?
Yes. This is one of the most common situations we see on the Islip south shore. Work from 2012 and 2013 was often done quickly and without filing, so the town record no longer describes the building. A lender will not fund across that gap. We buy the house as it actually stands and the permit history becomes ours.
Our bulkhead is failing. Do we have to fix it first?
No. A failing bulkhead is a structural repair that runs well into five figures, and it is the first thing a buyer's engineer flags on a canal lot. We price the bulkhead into the offer and show you that line, so you can see exactly what it cost you rather than guessing.
Our cesspool failed. What happens now?
With a financed buyer, usually nothing good, because the lender will not fund a house with a failed system and Suffolk County may require an advanced treatment system rather than a straight replacement. We buy on cesspool and septic including failed systems, price the work in, and close.
There is an apartment in the basement that was never filed. Is that a problem?
Not for us. Accessory apartments are common across the Town of Islip and most predate any permit. When an appraiser counts a second kitchen the lender wants the certificate of occupancy reconciled first, which can take months. We buy the house as it is.
Do you buy condos or co-ops in Islip?
No. We buy houses, two families and small multifamily only. We would rather tell you that immediately than have you find out after two weeks.
How fast can you close?
Seven to fourteen days is typical once the attorneys have what they need. We can move faster against a foreclosure date and slower if you need time for probate or to line up your next place. The date is yours.