What a non-paying tenant costs a Northport landlord
Landlords tend to count what a non-paying tenant costs them as unpaid rent and stop there. The fuller number includes the carrying costs you keep paying, the legal fees if a proceeding is underway, the repairs you make to a unit occupied by somebody not paying for it, and the months of your own attention it quietly consumes.
Against all that, a sale that closes on a date you pick is worth more than a comparison of prices alone suggests. Do that arithmetic honestly before deciding to wait it out.
Why a Northport house with a non-paying tenant will not finance
A buyer using a mortgage needs their lender comfortable, and a lender looks at a property with a non-paying tenant and sees a house it might not be able to take possession of. Most will not lend on it. The buyer who wanted the house cannot complete, and the landlord is back at the start.
We have no lender. The occupancy question is ours to solve after closing, which is why the arrears that ended three previous deals do not end this one.
Why local knowledge changes the number
A house on Orchard Drive. A house on Gail Court. A house on Ashwood Court. All of them in Northport, all bought by us.
Northport is roughly 7,347 people in Suffolk County, ZIP 11768, and the housing stock is mostly victorian, colonial, cape cod. Around Main Street and Northport Harbor, most of it is old enough that the mechanicals are on their second or third life. The Northport 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 Northport-East Northport Union Free School District does to a resale price.
You do not have to get them out first
If a case against the non-paying tenant is already underway, that is not a problem either. A pending matter does not prevent a sale, it needs coordination between the attorneys, and in many cases the proceeding carries on after closing with us in your place.
Tell us what has been filed and where it stands. Your attorney and ours handle the sequencing between them, and nobody asks you to reach the finish line first.
What we bring beyond the offer
Selling is not always the right answer and we will say so. Sometimes a tenant who has stopped paying is a fixable situation, and what the landlord actually needs is a good landlord-tenant attorney rather than a buyer.
We know the attorneys who do this work on Long Island and we are glad to make the introduction whether or not the house ends up being ours. Where selling is the right move, we have bought a great many houses with a non-paying tenant in place and none of the details will surprise us.
What you do not pay when you sell a house with a non-paying tenant
Listing a house with a non-paying tenant the usual way brings each of these costs with it. Selling to us brings none of them.
- Agent commission
- $47,500 at 5% of the Northport median none
- Seller closing costs
- About $19,000 on a $950,000 sale. We can cover these. none
- Repairs to make it listable
- Whatever the house needs, paid up front none
- Cleanout and removal
- Paid per load, before a single buyer walks through none
- Carrying costs while it waits
- Taxes, insurance and utilities through the 79 to 94 days a listing takes to sell and close none
Selling quietly while the Northport arrears are unresolved
Some tenancies have become tense enough that the landlord wants no contact with the non-paying tenant at all. That is workable. We ask for whatever access you can reasonably give, we will not ask you to force entry on anybody, and we do not make an unrealistic showing schedule a condition of the offer.
If the relationship has reached the point where communication should go through counsel, your attorney will tell you so, and we will work around it.
What the two paths cost in Northport
These are the two routes open to you with a house with a non-paying tenant, priced against what Northport houses actually sell for.
Work it against Northport's own numbers. The median sale here is $950,000. A 5% commission on that is $47,500, and seller closing costs of about 2% add roughly $19,000. Those are costs we can cover on our side. That is $66,500 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 Northport the median house takes about 34 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 79 to 94 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 | $950,000 (Northport median) | Our written offer |
| Commission | −$47,500 | None |
| Seller closing costs | −$19,000 | We can cover them |
| Repairs before listing | Out of pocket | None |
| Cleanout | Yours | Ours |
| Showings | Until it sells | One visit |
| Listed to signed contract | 34 days (Northport 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 | 79 to 94 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 | $883,500 | 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.
Listing a Northport house against selling it as it is
The median house in Northport sold for $950,000 and took about 34 days to go under contract, then another 45 to 60 days waiting on the buyer's mortgage. That is 79 to 94 days in total, for a house that was ready to show on day one. That is the ordinary path for an ordinary house. Add a non-paying tenant and it frequently does not finish at all, because the buyer's lender will not go where the occupancy is unresolved.
Weigh the retail figure against a closing you control and the two are often much closer than owners expect.
Common questions
Will you buy my Northport house with a non-paying tenant in it?
Yes. A non-paying tenant is one of the most common reasons landlords call us. We price the house as it stands and take the arrears situation on ourselves after closing.
Do I have to start an eviction before you will make an offer?
Not at all. Whether starting a case makes sense for you is a question for a landlord-tenant attorney and we can introduce you to one. It is not something we require.
Can I still recover the back rent I am owed?
Selling does not by itself settle what a non-paying tenant owes you, and how it is handled wants writing into the contract properly. Have your attorney look at that point, and we will work with whatever they ask for.
How long is this going to take?
A sale to us moves at whatever pace suits you, because there is no lender on our side to satisfy. The non-paying tenant case is the part with an unpredictable timeline, and that becomes our problem rather than yours.
Do you need to see inside the Northport unit first?
We would like to, and we can work from whatever you are able to show us. A non-paying tenant rarely welcomes visitors, so we plan for that rather than making it a condition.