What squatters and holdover tenants have in common
The version that surprises owners most is the holdover tenant who is not a bad person and not obviously a problem. The lease ended, nothing was renewed, life carried on, and now the property cannot be sold on the open market because no document says who is entitled to be there.
That gap alone is enough to end a financed sale. It is not enough to end ours.
Making an offer on an Uniondale house we cannot enter
We make offers on houses with squatters that nobody has been inside for a long time. That is normal work for us rather than an exception, and it is a large part of why owners in this position call a cash buyer first.
Give us the outside, the age of the property, whatever you knew about the condition before the occupancy began, and anything you have been told since. That is enough for a written number.
Why local knowledge changes the number
The median has slipped 1.95% year over year as of 2026-10. It is a small move, but a softening market punishes the houses that need work first - buyers with choices do not choose the project. At a $684,649 median, Uniondale is a market where buyers expect to do some work. That helps a seller with a dated house and hurts one with a genuinely broken one, because the pool that will take on a project is not the same pool that will take on a gut. Houses here take a median of 50 days to go from listed to under contract, and that clock only starts once the property is ready to show.
Uniondale is roughly 32,473 people in Nassau County, ZIP 11553, and the housing stock is mostly cape cod, colonial, ranch. Around Hempstead Turnpike and the Nassau Coliseum, most of it is old enough that the mechanicals are on their second or third life. We have been buying across Nassau County for 15+ years. We know what the Uniondale Union Free School District does to a resale price, which blocks still have oil tanks in the ground, and what a house like yours is actually worth here.
Listing a house with a holdover tenant still in it
A buyer with a mortgage has to hand their lender a property the lender could take possession of if it ever had to. A house with squatters in it is not that, so financed offers fall away as soon as the occupancy is disclosed.
We buy with our own funds. There is nobody behind us who needs the house empty, appraised from the inside, or documented to a standard the occupancy cannot meet.
What we bring to a squatter or holdover problem
We have bought Nassau County houses at nearly every stage of an occupancy problem. Before anything was filed, in the middle of a case, and after an owner had spent a year on it and had enough.
What we can give you is a clear read on which parts of your situation are ordinary, what tends to happen next, and who to call. Proceedings in New York are slow and the timeline depends on the court, so nobody should be promising you a date. What we will say is that a difficult occupant has never been the reason we walked away from a seller.
How selling a house with squatters or holdover tenants in Uniondale works
- 1
You tell us about the house
An address in 11553 and a rough idea of condition. Two minutes on the phone or the form. We do not need photographs, a clean house, or anything fixed first.
- 2
A quick look in person
We visit once and it rarely takes more than half an hour. On the cape cod or colonial houses that make up most of Uniondale, we check the roof, the boiler and the electric before anything cosmetic.
- 3
We put a figure in writing
You have a written number within 24 hours, a single figure rather than a "somewhere around". Feel free to check it with a Nassau County agent. When a house is ready to list as it is, listing can beat us, and we would rather you knew.
- 4
You choose when to close
Soon, or months away if probate, a tenant or your next move has to come first. You also avoid the 95 to 110 days a listed Uniondale house typically takes to find a buyer and get through the buyer's mortgage.
You do not have to see the case through yourself
If nothing has been filed yet, that is fine as well, and nothing needs filing before we buy. Whether starting something makes sense for you ahead of a sale is a question for a landlord-tenant attorney, and the answer turns on facts we would not want to guess at.
We will buy the house either way. The squatters or holdover tenants come with it.
What you do not pay when you sell a house with squatters or holdover tenants
Every line below is a cost of listing a house with squatters or holdover tenants the retail way that simply does not arise here.
- Agent commission
- $34,232 at 5% of the Uniondale median none
- Seller closing costs
- About $13,693 on a $684,649 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
- Charged by the truckload, and done before the first showing none
- Carrying costs while it waits
- Taxes, insurance and utilities while you spend 95 to 110 days finding a buyer and waiting for their loan none
What the listed route realistically looks like
If the occupancy is close to resolving and the property is in decent shape, waiting and listing afterward may net you more. We will tell you when we think that is your situation.
The median house in Uniondale sold for $684,649 and took about 50 days to go under contract, then another 45 to 60 days waiting on the buyer's mortgage. That is 95 to 110 days in total, for a house that was ready to show on day one. The case for selling to us is when the occupancy has no date on it, which with squatters and holdover tenants is usually the whole problem.
Common questions
Will you buy an Uniondale house with squatters in it?
That is work we do regularly. Tell us what you know about who is in there and how long they have been there, and we will put a written number on the house.
My tenant's lease ended and they will not leave. What now?
That is a holdover situation, and the first call is a landlord-tenant attorney, because the New York rules here are specific and they change. We can give you a name. Alongside that we can make you an offer on the house as it stands, so you can see both roads at once.
How long does it take to get somebody out?
Longer than owners expect, and that is the honest answer. Proceedings in New York are slow. If the uncertainty is the part you cannot live with, selling moves it off your side of the table entirely.
Do you need to get inside before making an offer?
No. We make offers on houses we have not been inside regularly, and we will not ask you to force access on anyone. We price conservatively where we cannot see and say clearly what we assumed.
Will the neighbors know the Uniondale house is being sold?
Nothing about the sale is public until it closes. That matters more than usual here, because a property with squatters in it does not need the extra attention.