What happens to a listing when the system fails
The frustrating part is the gap between the problem and the reaction to it. A cesspool is a solvable piece of work, done by contractors who do it every week, and yet it clears a room of retail buyers faster than almost anything else.
That is because nobody in a conventional sale can size it. The seller does not know, the buyer does not know, the agent does not know, and the only way to find out is for somebody to spend money. So the deal stalls over the cesspool, and stalled deals rarely restart.
What we take on when the system has failed
The useful thing we bring to a failed cesspool is proportion. Homeowners get handed a figure by the first company they phone, assume that is the figure, and make a decision about their house on the strength of it.
We do this constantly. We can look at the age of the house, the lot, where the system sits and what the ground is like in that part of Nassau County, and form a realistic view of what the cesspool actually needs. Sometimes it is smaller than you were told. Tell us what happened and we will tell you plainly what usually comes next.
Why local knowledge changes the number
A house on Lincoln Avenue. In Roosevelt, bought and paid for by us.
Roosevelt is roughly 18,066 people in Nassau County, ZIP 11575, and the housing stock is mostly cape cod, colonial, ranch. Around Nassau Road and the Meadowbrook State Parkway, 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 Roosevelt 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.
No inspection, no pump-out, no cesspool repair required
There is a version of this where you borrow against the house, pay for a new system, and then find that the buyer who walked over the cesspool was not coming back and the next one wants something else fixed as well. We see it, and it is a hard thing to watch.
You do not have to repair the cesspool, pump it, inspect it or dig anything up to sell to us. The condition of the system is priced into the offer once, up front, and the offer does not move afterward.
Who to ask about a cesspool in Nassau County
Rules around waste systems on Long Island have changed over the years and continue to, and what applies at your address depends on the lot, the location and what is already in the ground.
The county health department is the authority on what a replacement cesspool or septic system at your address has to be, and a sanitary contractor will know what that means in practice. There are sometimes programs that help with the cost, which is worth asking about while you have them on the phone. If you would rather not run that errand at all, sell the house with the cesspool as it is and it stops being yours.
How we arrive at a number on a house with a failed cesspool
On a house with a failed cesspool, the number comes from three things: what it will be worth when the work is finished, what the work will cost, and a cushion in case we are wrong on either. That is all there is to it. There is no formula we are keeping from you.
- What it is worth repaired. Not the Roosevelt median of $598,693 on its own, but what houses like yours on your street actually closed at recently.
- What the work costs. Roof, boiler, electric, the kitchen and bath. In Roosevelt the stock is largely cape cod and colonial, and on houses that age the mechanicals are usually the expensive part rather than the cosmetics.
- How long we will hold it. The median Roosevelt house goes under contract in about 51 days once it is showable, then waits 45 to 60 days more on the buyer's lender. Ours has to get to showable first, and we carry taxes and insurance across the whole of it.
- What we are wrong about. Some of what a house needs only shows once the work starts. We price that in, and it is a big part of the gap between a cash offer and a retail sale.
Why this works for us when it would not for you
This is the part cash buyers tend to gloss over. We run millions of dollars of construction a year. That buys materials at contractor pricing and keeps our own crews working through the year, so the same renovation costs us roughly half what it would cost you to hire it out.
That is the business in one line. It is also why renovating before a sale rarely pays: you would buy the same roof and boiler at retail and hope to get it back at resale, which usually does not happen. We do not make our money by paying you less. We make it by building for less.
If the number does not work for you, tell us so. We would rather have that conversation than pressure anyone. We will look at where you are and give you an honest read on your options, including ones that do not involve selling to us. Plenty of sellers are better off with an agent, and we will say so if you are one of them.
Closing on a Roosevelt house with the system as it is
The reason a cash buyer matters here is not really speed. It is that nobody else is grading the house. A mortgage lender has an opinion about a failed cesspool and will hold funding until it is satisfied, and satisfying it means a contractor, an invoice and a sign-off, all completed before closing.
Which puts the seller in an impossible spot: pay for a new system on a house you are leaving, for a buyer who can still walk away afterward. We use our own funds. No lender, no conditions, no cesspool work required of you.
What you do not pay when you sell a house with a failed cesspool
These are the costs of putting a house with a failed cesspool on the market through an agent. None of them apply when you sell to us.
- Agent commission
- $29,935 at 5% of the Roosevelt median none
- Seller closing costs
- About $11,974 on a $598,693 sale. We can cover these. none
- Repairs to make it listable
- Whatever it takes to make it listable, paid in advance none
- Cleanout and removal
- Charged by the truckload, and done before the first showing none
- Carrying costs while it waits
- Taxes, insurance and utilities for the 96 to 111 days of finding a buyer and waiting on their mortgage none
Telling us everything, and what you owe a buyer
We would rather hear the whole history of the cesspool at the start. The backups, the pump-outs, the company that came out twice, the quote sitting on the kitchen counter that you have been avoiding for a month.
None of that changes whether we buy a house with a failed cesspool in it. On the disclosure question, ask your attorney what New York requires of you rather than taking our word or anyone else's. We are buyers rather than lawyers, and this is one worth getting right.
Common questions
Do I have to fix the cesspool before you buy a Roosevelt house?
Not at all. No repair, no replacement, no pump-out, no inspection. The condition of the cesspool is priced into the offer, and the offer does not move afterward.
What does a new cesspool or septic system cost?
It turns on the lot, the location and what the county health department requires at your address, so any cesspool figure quoted from a web page is a guess. A sanitary contractor who has walked the property will give you a real answer.
The cesspool backed up but the house is still livable. Is that a failure?
Sometimes a backup is a blockage and sometimes it is the cesspool reaching the end of its life, and telling those apart takes somebody who has opened it up. Either way we buy, and either way it is worth knowing which one you have.
A buyer walked away over the cesspool. Does that hurt my chances with you?
Not at all, and it is how a great many people arrive here. A retail buyer walking over a failed cesspool tells us something about that buyer, not about your house.
Do you buy houses on septic as well as cesspools?
Yes. A great deal of Nassau County is on cesspools or septic rather than sewers, and we buy across all of it. Whatever is in your yard, it does not have to be working for us to buy the house.