Where our experience with occupied property helps
Landlords who call us about a Baldwin tenant-occupied house have usually tried the ordinary route already and watched buyer after buyer lose interest at the tenant question.
We are the other end of that market. We take the property occupied, take the rent roll as it stands, and take the occupant on after closing. Security deposits transfer through the attorneys as normal. If a holdover proceeding is already underway, we can often carry it forward rather than asking you to finish it first.
Nobody has to be moved out before we look
Most sale agreements hand the tenant problem straight back to the seller: deliver vacant possession by closing, or there is no closing. Ours does not.
Whatever the tenant does between now and the closing date is our concern rather than yours. You are not being asked to evict anyone, negotiate with anyone, or spend money persuading somebody to go. We buy occupied, and occupancy becomes ours at closing.
Why local knowledge changes the number
A four-bedroom on Homan Place. A four-bedroom on Village Avenue. A house on Beech Street. All of them in Baldwin, all bought by us.
Baldwin is roughly 33,919 people in Nassau County, ZIP 11510, and the housing stock is mostly colonial, cape cod, tudor. Around Grand Avenue and Merrick Road, most of it is old enough that the mechanicals are on their second or third life. The Baldwin 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 Baldwin 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.
Multi-family property with tenants in Baldwin
Two-family and converted houses are the ones where a single tenant holds up an entire sale. Three units paying and one occupant refusing to cooperate is enough to end most retail deals.
We buy them occupied, whether every tenant is paying or not, and we do not need the difficult unit emptied, or even shown, before we give you a number.
What the two paths cost in Baldwin
These are the two routes open to you with a tenant-occupied house, priced against what Baldwin houses actually sell for.
Work it against Baldwin's own numbers. The median sale here is $725,000. A 5% commission on that is $36,250, and seller closing costs of about 2% add roughly $14,500. Those are costs we can cover on our side. That is $50,750 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 Baldwin the median house takes about 44 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 89 to 104 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 | $725,000 (Baldwin median) | Our written offer |
| Commission | −$36,250 | None |
| Seller closing costs | −$14,500 | We can cover them |
| Repairs before listing | Out of pocket | None |
| Cleanout | Yours | Ours |
| Showings | Until it sells | One visit |
| Listed to signed contract | 44 days (Baldwin 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 | 89 to 104 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 | $674,250 | The number we put in writing |
Assumptions: 5% commission and about 2% seller closing costs on the listing side, and both move from deal to deal. Repairs and the cost of holding the house are not deducted, since they vary by property. A well-kept house with a good agent can come out ahead of a cash sale, and if that describes yours we will say it.
What to send us before we 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
- $36,250 at 5% of the Baldwin median none
- Seller closing costs
- About $14,500 on a $725,000 sale. We can cover these. none
- Repairs to make it listable
- Whatever the house needs, paid up front none
- Cleanout and removal
- Charged by the truckload, and done before the first showing none
- Carrying costs while it waits
- Taxes, insurance and utilities while you spend 89 to 104 days finding a buyer and waiting for their loan none
What a tenant does to a listed sale in Baldwin
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 Baldwin 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 Baldwin?
Ideally yes, realistically often not, and we plan for that. Show us what the tenants will allow, tell us what you know about the rest, and we price the unseen units conservatively rather than walking away from the house.
What happens to the security deposits?
They transfer at closing, handled through the attorneys in the normal way. You do not need to refund or reconcile anything with the tenant beforehand.
Can you buy if the tenant is already in a court proceeding?
We buy Baldwin 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 Baldwin house is for sale?
Not from a sign or a listing, because there is neither. Most landlords tell their tenants when they choose to, and if the tenancy is tense it is worth a word with your attorney about how and when.
Do I have to give the tenants notice before selling?
That is a legal question worth five minutes with an attorney, because New York rules around tenants are specific. The selling side we can answer now: no tenant has to be given notice to leave in order for us to buy.