How we help landlords sell a tenant-occupied house in Hempstead
The reason a tenant makes a house hard to sell is that most buyers need vacant possession and their lenders insist on it. We do not.
We buy subject to the existing tenancy and take the tenant situation on ourselves after closing. You do not serve notice, you do not start a proceeding, and you do not pay anybody to leave on our behalf. If the arrangement is undocumented, the rent is behind, or the lease ran out long ago, tell us plainly and we will price it. Those are the Hempstead calls we get most.
Nobody has to be moved out before we look
New York does not make removing a tenant quick, and a landlord who is already tired of the property should not have to fight that fight just to be allowed to sell.
So we do not ask. The tenant stays, the lease comes with the house, and the situation becomes ours the day we close. If you want out of being a landlord, wanting out should not require one more proceeding first.
Why local knowledge changes the number
A six-bedroom on Princeton Street. A five-bedroom on Flint Avenue. A three-bedroom on Carolina Avenue. All of them in Hempstead, all bought by us.
Hempstead is roughly 59,169 people in Nassau County, ZIP 11550, and the housing stock is mostly colonial, cape cod, tudor. Around Fulton Avenue and Main Street, most of it is old enough that the mechanicals are on their second or third life. The Hempstead stop pulls buyers who commute, which supports the good houses and does very little for the ones that need a roof. We know which of these streets take water, where the older systems fail first, and what the Hempstead Union Free School District does to a resale price.
Non-paying tenants and holdovers
A tenant who has stopped paying makes a house nearly unsellable on the open market. A buyer with a mortgage cannot get comfortable with it, and their lender gets comfortable even less.
It does not stop us. We price the property for what it is, non-paying tenant included, and we take the arrears situation on ourselves. You do not have to chase the money first to make the house saleable, and you do not have to make them current to make the number real.
Two-family houses and the unit holding up the sale
Investors buying multi-family with financing need cooperation from every tenant: access for the appraiser, estoppel letters, paperwork that reads cleanly. One tenant who will not answer the door is enough to collapse the whole thing.
We buy with our own funds, so an occupant who will not participate slows nothing down. We take the building with the tenants it has and sort out the rest after closing.
What the two paths cost in Hempstead
These are the two routes open to you with a tenant-occupied house, priced against what Hempstead houses actually sell for.
Work it against Hempstead's own numbers. The median sale here is $660,000. A 5% commission on that is $33,000, and seller closing costs of about 2% add roughly $13,200. Those are costs we can cover on our side. That is $46,200 gone before anyone counts the repairs it took to get the house listable.
There are two waits in a listed sale and people usually only count the first. In Hempstead the median house takes about 57 days to go from listed to a signed contract. Then it waits again, typically 45 to 60 days, while the buyer's lender orders an appraisal and underwrites the loan. Call it 102 to 117 days from sign to keys, assuming nothing goes wrong.
The part worth understanding is what a signed contract actually guarantees, which is less than most sellers assume. A retail buyer with a mortgage contingency can walk away right up to the end. If they do not qualify, if the appraisal comes in under the price, if they change their mind and let the financing lapse. A share of deals die exactly there, after months of waiting, and the house goes back on the market with time on it. We are not borrowing anything, so there is no lender to satisfy, no appraisal to come in low and no contingency to exercise.
| Listing with an agent | Selling to us | |
|---|---|---|
| Sale price | $660,000 (Hempstead median) | Our written offer |
| Commission | −$33,000 | None |
| Seller closing costs | −$13,200 | We can cover them |
| Repairs before listing | Out of pocket | None |
| Cleanout | Yours | Ours |
| Showings | Until it sells | One visit |
| Listed to signed contract | 57 days (Hempstead median, once listable) | 24 hours to a written offer |
| Contract to closing | 45 to 60 days (waiting on the buyer's lender) | A date you choose |
| Total wait | 102 to 117 days if nothing falls through | Yours to set |
| Can the buyer walk? | Yes (mortgage contingency runs to the end) | No financing to fall through |
| Before repairs and carrying | $613,800 | The number we put in writing |
The agent column uses a 5% commission and about 2% of seller closing costs, which are typical rather than fixed. It leaves out repairs and holding costs because no two houses are alike there. Where a house is in good condition, listing with a capable agent can beat our number, and we will be upfront if that is the case.
What we need from a Hempstead landlord to make an offer
Landlords sometimes delay calling because the tenant paperwork is a mess. A lease that expired years ago, rent taken in cash, somebody who moved a relative in at some point and nobody papered it.
None of that disqualifies the house. Tell us what is true and we build it into the number. The one thing worth being straight about early is anything a court has already been asked to decide about a tenant, because that affects timing and we would rather know at the start than at the closing table.
What you do not pay when you sell a tenant-occupied house
These are the costs of putting a tenant-occupied house on the market through an agent. None of them apply when you sell to us.
- Agent commission
- $33,000 at 5% of the Hempstead median none
- Seller closing costs
- About $13,200 on a $660,000 sale. We can cover these. none
- Repairs to make it listable
- The work it needs to show well, out of your pocket first none
- Cleanout and removal
- Paid per load, before a single buyer walks through none
- Carrying costs while it waits
- Taxes, insurance and utilities for the 102 to 117 days of finding a buyer and waiting on their mortgage none
When listing is the better move
The honest comparison is not our offer against an asking price. It is our offer against what a tenant-occupied listing actually produces. Showings scheduled around a tenant, a lender's appraiser needing access, a buyer discovering the arrears at the eleventh hour.
Weigh that against one visit, a written number and a closing date you choose. For some Hempstead landlords the listing still wins, and we will tell you when we think that is you.
Common questions
Do you need to inspect the tenant-occupied units in Hempstead?
We prefer to see them, but we can work from what you are able to show us. We do not expect a landlord to force access on a tenant, and we will not make an unrealistic showing schedule a condition of the offer.
What happens to the security deposits?
Deposits move with the tenancies at closing and the attorneys handle the accounting. If a tenant's deposit was spent or never formally held, say so early and we will work it into the numbers rather than discover it late.
Can you buy if the tenant is already in a court proceeding?
We buy Hempstead houses with live tenant matters regularly. Tell us what has been filed and where it stands, and your attorney and ours will handle the sequencing between them.
Will the tenants find out the Hempstead house is for sale?
There is no sign on the lawn and nothing online, so nothing announces the sale to a tenant. The notice that eventually goes out is about where rent gets paid, and it goes out after closing.
Do I have to give the tenants notice before selling?
What notice a tenancy requires depends on the lease and on state and local rules, so ask your attorney rather than guessing. What we can tell you is that we never ask a seller to end a tenancy as a condition of the sale.