Sell your house fast in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.

Bensonhurst is the big neighborhood in southwest Brooklyn between Bay Ridge and Gravesend, built almost all at once in the 1920s and 1930s with brick semi attached two families, a driveway between every pair, a garage under the house, and a porch. 86th Street under the D train is the shopping street, 18th Avenue is the old Italian spine, and Bay Parkway and 65th Street are now the center of one of the largest Chinese communities in the city. The Italian families who bought these houses in the 1950s are estates now, with children on Staten Island and in New Jersey, and the buyers are mostly Chinese families who want a two family with a driveway. In between are the houses that have not been touched since 1960.

The typical home value in Bensonhurst is around $1,355,000, up roughly 7.9% over the past year, with houses averaging about 100 days on the market.

The semi attached with a 1958 kitchen and a parent’s name on the deed

The most common Bensonhurst call is an estate. Bought in 1955 or 1962, paid off in 1980, kept exactly as it was: the original kitchen, a bathroom with pink tile, a cellar finished in the 1970s with paneling and a bar, a boiler nursed along for thirty years, and sixty years of belongings in the attic and the garage. The children are on Staten Island, in New Jersey 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, the garage apartment, and the appraiser

Thousands of Bensonhurst cellars have a kitchen, a bathroom and a tenant, and a good many garages under the house 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.

The shared driveway, and the neighbor who parks in it

Nearly every semi attached pair in Bensonhurst shares a driveway, and a surprising number of them have no recorded easement. A neighbor who parks in it, a fence that was moved in 1985, or a garage that straddles the line can hold up a financed sale while the attorneys argue and the title company waits for a survey. We buy with the driveway dispute open, our title company handles the easement or the survey after closing, and it is a line on the offer, not a reason to leave.

Two families with a tenant who stopped paying

Most Bensonhurst two families are 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.

Where listing still wins in Bensonhurst

A renovated semi attached with legal units, a new kitchen and no deadline should be listed, and we will say so. Bensonhurst has buyers lined up for a house a lender will finance. Where a cash sale wins is the estate full of belongings, the cellar apartment the appraiser will flag, the driveway nobody can agree on, the tenant in Housing Court, or the owner with a closing date in Florida that cannot move.

What we buy in Bensonhurst

Brick semi attached and attached two families, detached one and two families on the Bath Beach side, houses with a cellar or garage apartment, houses with a driveway dispute or an open Department of Buildings violation, mixed use buildings on 86th Street and 18th Avenue, estates in any condition, houses in foreclosure, and vacant lots. We do not buy cooperative apartments. If you own something unusual, call anyway.

Bensonhurst, Bath Beach, and the blocks along the Belt

Bensonhurst is one housing type repeated for a hundred blocks, but it is not one price. The streets between 86th Street and Bay Parkway near the D train are the center of the market, and a semi attached there with legal units sells in a weekend. Bath Beach, down toward the Belt Parkway and Gravesend Bay, has more detached houses on bigger lots and a flood zone along the water that a lender prices in. The blocks along 65th Street and New Utrecht Avenue under the elevated tracks are priced for the noise. We buy on all of them and the offer is built from sales on your blocks, not from an average of two zip codes.

What every block shares is the 1920s brick semi attached. It is one of the best built houses in the city and it has one set of problems: a flat roof with layers on it, galvanized water lines, a service panel from the 1950s, a garage that was built for a 1928 car, and a cellar that was finished in the 1970s without a permit. 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 Bensonhurst? You can also sell your house fast in Bay Ridge NY or sell a house fast in Sheepshead Bay NY, and you can read about how we buy houses in Sunset Park NY.

Many Bensonhurst homeowners also ask us how to sell an inherited home in Bensonhurst NY, sell a house during divorce, or sell a rental property as a tired landlord.