Sell your house fast in Howard Beach, Queens.

Howard Beach is the neighborhood at the bottom of Queens on Jamaica Bay, between Ozone Park and the airport, with Cross Bay Boulevard running through it to the Rockaways and the Belt Parkway along the top. It was built between 1950 and 1975 as a suburb inside the city, capes and high ranches on quarter acre lots in Rockwood Park, canal houses with a bulkhead and a boat in Old Howard Beach and Hamilton Beach, and brick attached houses and co-ops in Lindenwood. It has been an Italian neighborhood for seventy years and still is, though the families who bought new in 1960 are estates now, with children on Long Island and in Florida. Superstorm Sandy put five feet of water through most of it in October 2012, and the neighborhood is still sorting out which houses were raised, which were patched, and which have paperwork from the city that nobody told the heirs about.

The typical home value in Howard Beach is around $940,000, up roughly 6.0% over the past year, with houses averaging about 80 days on the market.

The Sandy house that was dried out and never raised

After the storm, some Howard Beach houses were raised with Build It Back money and some were not. The ones that were not had the cellar pumped out, the boiler moved up, the sheetrock cut at five feet and patched, and life went on. Fourteen years later the flood maps have been redrawn, the insurance pricing has changed, and a lender requires a policy that a buyer calls insane. Some houses carry a Build It Back agreement recorded against the deed. Some have an open permit from a 2013 repair. A financed sale dies at the insurance quote or the title search. We buy Sandy houses raised or not, with the premium and the paperwork priced into the offer, and the insurance becomes ours.

The canal house and the bulkhead

The houses on the canals in Old Howard Beach and Hamilton Beach are the best addresses in the neighborhood and the hardest to finance. The bulkhead is the owner’s, it is fifty years old, it is failing at the waterline, and a new one costs tens of thousands. A buyer’s inspector flags it, the lender wants it addressed, and the deal waits. We buy canal houses with the bulkhead as it is, price the replacement into the offer, and take the job on after closing.

The high ranch a parent bought new in 1962

The most common Howard Beach call is an estate. A cape or high ranch in Rockwood Park bought new in 1962 or 1970, paid off in 1990, kept exactly as it was: the original kitchen, a finished basement from the 1970s that flooded in 2012 and was patched, a boiler on a platform, and sixty years of belongings. The children are in Nassau, Suffolk or Florida, there is a Queens Surrogate’s Court file, and the house is full. We buy it as it sits, belongings included, we wait for the letters, and the heirs sign from wherever they live.

Hamilton Beach, and the houses the city forgot

Hamilton Beach is the strip between the A train tracks and the bay, with narrow streets, frame houses that started as summer bungalows, and some of the worst Sandy damage in the city. A lender’s appraiser struggles to find comparables and the inspector finds a century of additions without permits. We buy Hamilton Beach houses on their own terms, with the additions, the flood history and the street priced in, and close in weeks.

Where listing still wins in Howard Beach

A raised, renovated canal house with a new bulkhead and a current elevation certificate, or an updated high ranch in Rockwood Park with no deadline, should be listed, and we will say so. Where a cash sale wins is the Sandy house that was never raised, the canal house with the failing bulkhead, the estate full of belongings, the Hamilton Beach frame with a century of additions, or the owner with a date that cannot move.

What we buy in Howard Beach

Capes, high ranches and colonials in Rockwood Park and Old Howard Beach, canal and bayfront houses raised or not, frame houses in Hamilton Beach, brick attached houses in Lindenwood, Sandy houses in any stage with any city paperwork, estates in any condition, houses in foreclosure, and vacant lots. We do not buy cooperative apartments, including the Lindenwood co-ops. If you own something unusual, call anyway.

Rockwood Park, Old Howard Beach, Hamilton Beach, and Lindenwood

Howard Beach is four markets. Rockwood Park, north of 157th Avenue, is capes and high ranches on quarter acre lots, priced like a Long Island suburb and the driest part of the neighborhood. Old Howard Beach, south of it on the canals, is priced on the water, the bulkhead and the elevation. Hamilton Beach, across the tracks, is frame houses on narrow streets with the worst Sandy history in Queens. Lindenwood, up by the Belt, is brick attached houses and co-ops. We buy in all four and the offer is built from sales in your section, with the comparable addresses on the sheet.

What every section shares is 1960 construction and 2012 water. Almost nothing in Howard Beach was built before 1950 or after 1975, and a house that was patched after Sandy rather than rebuilt has the same list no matter the block: a boiler on a platform, sheetrock cut at five feet and patched, a service panel that was replaced after the flood and nothing else, and a finished basement that has a tenant again. 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 subdivided two family with five households 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. Add an open Department of Buildings permit from a 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 Howard Beach? You can also sell your house fast in Ozone Park NY or sell a house fast in Far Rockaway NY, and you can read about how we buy houses in Canarsie NY.

Many Howard Beach homeowners also ask us how to sell a rental property as a tired landlord, sell a house with bad tenants, or sell a house with code violations.