Sell your house fast in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

Crown Heights is the neighborhood on either side of Eastern Parkway between Prospect Heights and Brownsville, and it has some of the best rowhouse blocks in Brooklyn: four story limestones and brownstones from the 1890s and 1900s, whole streets of them, with enough intact that three landmark districts cover much of the north side. South of the parkway it is brick two families and small apartment buildings. Caribbean families bought the limestones in the 1960s and 1970s when the banks would not lend here. The Lubavitch community has anchored the blocks around Kingston Avenue since the 1940s. Both are selling now, and the question is almost always what to do with a four story house that has been three or four households for decades.

The typical home value in Crown Heights is around $1,910,000, up roughly 6.6% over the past year, with houses averaging about 69 days on the market.

The limestone that has been a rooming house since 1975

A great many Crown Heights limestones were legally two families and have been four or five households for fifty years, with a kitchen on every floor, a tenant in the cellar, and a certificate of occupancy that says otherwise. A financed buyer’s appraiser counts the legal units, the lender wants the rest documented or removed, the buyer’s attorney pulls the Department of Buildings file, and the deal ends in week four. We buy the house as its legal units, price the rest as what they are, and the tenants and the city’s file come with the house to us at closing.

Landmark districts and the Landmarks file

In Crown Heights North, the Landmarks Preservation Commission has a say in the windows, the cornice, the stoop and the front door. A previous owner’s aluminum windows, a stoop that was rebuilt in concrete, or a cornice that was removed after a fire can mean a violation and a required restoration before a lender will close. We buy landmark rows with the violation open, take on the Landmarks file, and do the restoration after closing rather than asking you to do it first.

Estates, and the family that bought when the banks would not lend

The most common Crown Heights call is a house bought in 1968 or 1974 by parents from Trinidad, Jamaica or Barbados, often with a private mortgage because no bank would write one here. It is paid off, it has been home to three generations, and now it is a Kings County Surrogate’s Court file with heirs in Florida, Atlanta and back home. The house has the original plaster, a boiler from the 1980s, a roof that is due, and fifty years of belongings. We buy it as it stands, we wait for the letters, and the heirs sign from wherever they live.

Stabilized tenants in a small building

The six and eight family buildings south of the parkway and along Nostrand and Kingston are rent stabilized, and the rents in many were set decades ago. A building where four of six tenants pay 2006 rents, with a boiler that is due and a Housing Preservation and Development file, does not underwrite for a lender. We buy stabilized buildings on the income they actually produce, the tenants stay with their leases, and the violations and the boiler become ours.

Where listing still wins in Crown Heights

A renovated limestone with legal units and market rate tenants on a landmark block should be listed, and we will say so. Crown Heights has buyers from Manhattan lined up for a house a lender will finance. Where a cash sale wins is the rooming house with the certificate of occupancy problem, the landmark row with the Landmarks violation, the estate with heirs in three countries, the stabilized building with the old rent roll, or the owner with a date that cannot move.

What we buy in Crown Heights

Limestone and brownstone rows, brick two and three families, six family and larger stabilized buildings, rooming houses and single room occupancy buildings, mixed use buildings on Nostrand, Kingston and Utica with a store below, landmark district houses with open violations, estates in any condition, houses in foreclosure, and vacant lots. We do not buy cooperative apartments. If you own something unusual, call anyway.

North of the parkway, south of it, and the Kingston Avenue blocks

Crown Heights is priced by Eastern Parkway. North of it, the limestone and brownstone rows in the landmark districts are priced like Bed-Stuy and Prospect Heights and sell to families and to investors who will restore them. South of it, the brick two families and small apartment buildings toward Empire Boulevard are priced on the rent. Around Kingston Avenue the market is its own, with buyers from within the community for houses near the synagogues and schools. We buy on all three and the offer is built from sales on your blocks, with the comparable addresses on the sheet.

What the three share is the age of the housing. The rows are from the 1890s and 1900s, and a house that has not been renovated has the same list no matter the block: original plaster, a service panel from the 1960s or earlier, galvanized water lines, a flat tar roof with layers on it, a cellar with the old coal bin, and a boiler that has been nursed. A lender reads that list as risk. We read it as math, price each line, and close anyway.

Water bills, violations, and the liens the city attaches

A Crown Heights brownstone that was cut into units decades ago usually carries a DEP balance, an HPD file with open violations, and an ECB fine for the sidewalk or the fire escape. The title company lists them on one page and a financed buyer’s lender wants the page empty. We buy with the page as it is, pay the city from the price at closing, and the files come to us with the deed.

Looking just beyond Crown Heights? You can also sell your house fast in Bed-Stuy NY or sell a house fast in Flatbush NY, and you can read about how we buy houses in Brownsville NY.

Many Crown Heights homeowners also ask us how to sell a house in probate in Crown Heights NY, sell a hoarder house, or sell a house in foreclosure.