Sell your house fast in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Bushwick is the neighborhood between Williamsburg and Ridgewood that burned in the 1970s, sat half empty through the 1980s, and became one of the most expensive rental markets in Brooklyn in the 2010s. The housing is wood frame two and three families from the 1890s and 1900s, most of them under vinyl or aluminum siding, with brick rows along Bushwick Avenue and the streets near the old breweries, and the lots that burned were rebuilt in the 1990s as city subsidized two families or left empty. The L runs under Wyckoff, the M over Myrtle, the J over Broadway. The families who held on through the bad decades own the houses now, and nearly every one of them has a developer’s letter in the mailbox.

The typical home value in Bushwick is around $1,435,000, up roughly 6.5% over the past year, with houses averaging about 70 days on the market.

The house is worth less than the lot, and the lot is the problem

A frame three family on a 25 by 100 lot near the L is worth more to a builder who will put up a six story rental than to anyone who wants the house. That lifts the price, and it also makes the sale strange. The developer’s offer comes with a long contract, a due diligence period, a zoning study, and a closing that depends on their financing and their permits, and it falls apart when the market turns. We pay for the lot value, we close in weeks, and there is no contingency for what the buyer plans to build.

Stabilized tenants in a frame three family

Buildings with six or more units in Bushwick are rent stabilized, and many of the three families were cut into more units than they started with. A tenant paying 2008 rent on the second floor, a rooming arrangement on the third, and a Housing Preservation and Development file with violations from a 2019 inspection end a financed sale, because the lender underwrites on the rent roll and the rent roll does not work. We buy on the income the building actually produces, the tenants stay with their leases, and the violations become ours after closing.

Estates, and the family that stayed through the fires

The most common Bushwick call is a house a grandmother bought in 1968 or 1975 for almost nothing, held through arson and abandonment on both sides of her, and left to children and grandchildren who now live in Pennsylvania, Florida or the Poconos. The house has knob and tube under the siding, a roof with layers, a boiler from the 1980s, and a Kings County Surrogate’s Court file with four heirs. Agents want it emptied and the tenants’ paperwork organized first. We buy it as it stands, belongings and tenants included, we wait for the letters, and the heirs sign from wherever they live.

The 1990s rebuild with a city lien on it

Many of Bushwick’s newer two families were built in the 1990s on burned lots under city programs that put a lien or a resale restriction on the deed for a term of years. Some of those terms are expired and the lien was never released. Some are not expired. A title company finds it, a lender stops, and the sale waits. We buy with the city paperwork open, we handle the release or the repayment at closing out of the price, and it is itemized on the offer before you sign.

Where listing still wins in Bushwick

A renovated three family with market rate tenants near the L should be listed, and we will say so. Buyers from Manhattan and Williamsburg line up for a building a lender will finance. Where a cash sale wins is the stabilized building with the 2008 rent roll, the estate with four heirs in three states, the frame house that needs everything, the city lien nobody released, or the owner who is tired of developers’ contracts that do not close.

What we buy in Bushwick

Frame and brick two and three families, six family and larger stabilized buildings, mixed use buildings on Knickerbocker, Myrtle and Broadway with a store below, vacant lots, houses with a city lien or an open Department of Buildings violation, estates in any condition, and houses in foreclosure. We do not buy cooperative apartments. If you own something unusual, call anyway.

Near the L, near the J, and the blocks in between

Bushwick is priced by the train. The blocks within five minutes of the L at Jefferson, DeKalb and Myrtle Wyckoff are where the developers and the Manhattan renters are, and a frame house there is a lot first and a house second. The blocks along Broadway under the J, toward Broadway Junction, are a different market, still mostly families and still priced on the house. The streets between, around Knickerbocker and Irving, are both at once. We buy on all of them and the offer is built from sales on your block, not from an average of a neighborhood that has two prices.

What every block shares is the frame house. Almost everything in Bushwick that is not a 1990s rebuild was built before 1910 of wood, and under the vinyl siding is the original clapboard, the original framing, and in most cases the original wiring. A frame house that has been maintained is fine. One that has had the same owner since 1972 has a list a lender’s inspector fills four pages with. 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 three family where tenants have run the water for decades on a frontage meter can carry a Department of Environmental Protection balance in the tens of 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. 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.

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

Many Bushwick homeowners also ask us how to sell a fire damaged house, sell a house when downsizing, or sell a house fast when relocating.