We Buy Houses in Essex County, NJ

Essex County runs from the two and three family frames of Newark, Irvington, East Orange, and Orange, through the postwar capes and colonials of Bloomfield, Belleville, and Nutley, up the hill to the Victorians of Montclair. The situations change with the elevation. On the flats it is tenants who stopped paying, basement units the city has cited, and tax sale certificates compounding on some of the highest tax rates in New Jersey. On the hill it is estates with heirs in three states, oil tanks nobody remembered, and houses that have not been touched since the original owners moved in.

What they share is that a financed buyer cannot close on them. The appraiser will not count the basement unit, the lender wants the oil tank pulled and tested, the town will not issue the certificate of occupancy with violations open, and the estate account runs dry paying the tax bill while the family argues. We have been buying in Essex County since 2000, we buy with cash, and every one of those problems is a line item in our offer instead of a reason the deal dies.

What we see most in Essex County

Tax sale certificates. Newark, Irvington, East Orange, and Orange produce more certificate foreclosures than almost anywhere in the state, because the tax rate is high against modest values. We buy houses carrying certificates, redeem them from the proceeds at closing, and can close before a certificate foreclosure reaches judgment. Our guide to selling with tax liens covers the deadlines.

Estates. The postwar neighborhoods were bought by families who stayed fifty and sixty years. When a parent passes, the children are in Morris County, Florida, or the Carolinas with an Essex County Surrogate file, a house full of belongings, and an oil tank in the yard. We buy inherited houses as they sit, clear every room, and handle the nonresident withholding at closing.

Tenants. Essex County landlord tenant court has a backlog that turns a nonpaying tenant into a year long project. We buy occupied buildings at the actual rent roll and the case transfers to us. Our page for tired landlords explains what that closing looks like.

Where we buy in Essex County

Every town below has its own page with the housing stock, the situations we see there, current home values, and answers to the questions sellers in that town ask most. If your town is not listed yet, call anyway. We buy across the whole county.

What Essex County houses are selling for right now

Typical single family home values and days on market by town, from public Zillow and Realtor.com data, refreshed monthly. Condition drives everything: a house that needs work trades well below these numbers on the open market, which is exactly the gap our cash offers are built for.