Sell your house fast in Flatbush, Brooklyn.

Flatbush is where Brooklyn’s two house markets meet, and the reason cash buyers exist here is paperwork, not distress. West of Flatbush Avenue, in Ditmas Park, Prospect Park South, Beverley Square, and Fiske Terrace, are the freestanding Victorian frames of the 1900s, wraparound porches and stained glass on lots the rest of the borough never had, built as single family houses for the streetcar commuters and cut into three, four, and six apartments through the middle of the twentieth century. East of Flatbush Avenue, on the blocks off Church Avenue, Cortelyou Road, and Nostrand Avenue, are the brick rowhouses and limestone two families of the 1910s and 1920s, owned now by the Haitian, Jamaican, Trinidadian, and Guyanese families who made Flatbush the center of Caribbean Brooklyn. What both halves share is a stock of houses that are worth a great deal on paper and sit in a legal condition no bank will lend on: apartments that are not on the certificate of occupancy, rent stabilized tenants in houses that crossed the six unit line decades ago, and estates that have been open since the last generation passed. We have been buying houses in the NY metro area since 2000, and Flatbush sellers call us because a Victorian on Argyle Road with six kitchens, four stabilized tenants, and a porch the city has written about is worth a great deal and almost impossible to sell to a bank as it stands. For background on the neighborhood, see this Flatbush community profile.

Nick York handles acquisitions for EZ Home Buyers, and Flatbush is a market he prices on what a house was built as, what it has become, what the city thinks it is, and who has the legal right to live in it. A Victorian on Marlborough Road with a legal two family layout is a different sale than the same house with six kitchens and four stabilized tenants, and both are different from a brick rowhouse on East 21st Street with a cited basement and one paying tenant. If you are thinking about selling your house in Flatbush, you deserve a real number with the reasoning written out, from a buyer who has walked every floor, pulled the certificate of occupancy, and read the leases. No agent fees, no repair demands, no financing that dies when the appraiser counts the kitchens.

Six kitchens, rent stabilization, and a certificate of occupancy from 1910

The defining Flatbush problem is the Victorian that became a building nobody ever registered. An appraiser will not count the units the certificate of occupancy does not show. A lender who learns the house has six or more units, and therefore rent stabilized tenants under state law at rents set decades ago, will want to know how a buyer intends to carry it. Add a wraparound porch that needs rebuilding, a slate roof at the end of its life, knob and tube behind the plaster, and a Department of Buildings file with violations going back decades, and a financed buyer’s inspection report reads like a demolition order. The house sits, the family is told to legalize apartments the zoning may not allow, and the taxes keep coming.

We close that gap. We buy with cash, we buy as-is, and the extra kitchens, the stabilized tenants, the violations, and the porch are line items in our offer instead of reasons the deal dies. We price the house on its actual rent roll and its actual legal status, not on the vacant renovated number an agent quoted your cousin. Our guide to selling with tenants in place covers the stabilization side, and selling a house with code violations covers the city.

The Flatbush sellers we hear from most

Estates come first, and often estates that have been open for years. A grandmother who bought the house in 1965 passes, the house goes to three children, and a decade later there are heirs across four states and a Kings County Surrogate’s Court file that nobody has touched. We work with executors, administrators, and heirs constantly, we can wait out the probate paperwork however long it takes, and we buy inherited houses exactly as they sit, tenants and belongings included.

Landlords with stabilized tenants are second. A carved up Victorian with stabilized tenants is a full time job that pays less every year against a tax bill and an insurance bill that go up every year. When a landlord is done, we buy the building with tenants in place, at the actual rent roll, and handle everything after closing ourselves.

Owners behind on the mortgage are third. New York foreclosure is a court process and it moves slowly, which means there is usually still time to act. Selling during pre-foreclosure can protect your credit and recover equity foreclosure would take; our guide to stopping a foreclosure auction walks through how late in the process a sale still works.

Liens, violations, and the paperwork side of Flatbush

New York City sells unpaid taxes and water as tax liens, and the water bills on an occupied six unit house grow quickly. Add open Department of Buildings violations from decades of unpermitted work, ECB fines that have compounded, an HPD registration that was never filed, a DHCR rent registration that was never filed, and a certificate of occupancy that has not matched the house since before the war, and the title report runs pages. We deal with tax liens and title problems as part of the purchase. Our attorneys run the city searches and payoff letters every week, and our offer accounts for what has to be satisfied at closing.

What Flatbush houses are actually selling for

The median sale price in Flatbush is around $1,760,000, up roughly -7.7% over the past year, with houses averaging about 97 days on the market. A renovated, delivered vacant Victorian in Ditmas Park sells for a number that leads every agent’s pitch. But it assumes vacant, renovated, and legal. A Victorian with six kitchens, four stabilized tenants, a porch that needs rebuilding, and a slate roof at the end of its life does not get the median. It gets a financed buyer who disappears at the appraisal, an investor who wants the tenants gone first, and years of tax bills while the family argues. We price the house for what it is, show you the math at the kitchen table, and leave the decision with you.

What we buy in Flatbush

Victorian frames in any condition, including houses carved into apartments with or without permits and houses with rent stabilized tenants, brick and limestone rowhouses, two to four family houses, houses with basement units legal or not, mixed use buildings on Church Avenue, Flatbush Avenue, Cortelyou Road, and Nostrand Avenue with a store below, and small apartment buildings. We do not buy cooperative apartments. Most of what we see in Flatbush is the Victorian that became a building or the rowhouse with a basement story, owned by an estate or a tired landlord, but if you own something unusual, call us anyway and we will take a look.

How to reach us

Flatbush is the center of our Brooklyn coverage. To the east we buy houses in East Flatbush, across the park we can help you sell your house fast in Park Slope, to the north we buy in Bed-Stuy, and to the south in Canarsie. Our full borough coverage is on the we buy houses in Brooklyn page.

Our written offers stay open for seven days, no pressure attached. Take the number to the rest of the family, your attorney, or a competing buyer and compare freely. Offers built on real math do not fear a week of thinking.

EZ Home Buyers is a family-owned company based in Great Neck, NY 11021. We have been operating across the NY metro area since 2000, and Flatbush is part of our core Brooklyn coverage. Call us at (516) 964-7222, email info@ezhomebuyers.com, or fill out the form on this page. Nick York will be in touch quickly, usually the same business day. We schedule a walkthrough at your convenience, make a cash offer within 24 hours of seeing the property, and close on a timeline that works for you.

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

Many Flatbush homeowners also ask us how to sell a water damaged house, sell a fire damaged house, or sell a house when downsizing.