Three numbers, not one
Renovated retail. What the house fetches once it is in the condition a financed buyer expects. This is the number an agent's comparable sales usually describe and it is the largest of the three. Getting it requires doing the work and waiting out a full sale.
As-is retail. What it fetches listed in its current condition. Lower, and sometimes much lower, because a house a lender will not finance loses most of its buyer pool.
Cash today. What a buyer pays to take it now, unrenovated, with no financing and no contingencies. Lowest of the three, and the only one that comes with a date you choose.
The Freeport median of $660,000 is a renovated-retail-ish figure. It is not the number for a house that needs work.
What an automated valuation cannot see about a Freeport house
They are built from public records and recent sales, which makes them decent at the middle of the market and poor at the edges.
The edge is where most people asking this question actually sit: a house that has not been updated in decades, one that has taken water, one with an open file at the Freeport building department. An algorithm has no input for any of that, so it returns the number for a normal version of your house.
How to get all three numbers, free
Ask a local agent for a comparative market analysis. Most will do one at no charge and it costs you nothing but an hour. Ask for two figures: what it would fetch renovated, and what it would fetch listed as it stands today.
Then get a written cash offer, from us or from anyone. A real one arrives as a figure rather than a range, and you should be able to take it to the agent for a view.
With those three in front of you the decision is arithmetic rather than guesswork, and you are not relying on any single party's characterization of the market.
The four things that decide the figure
In order: whether a lender will finance it, what the mechanicals need, what the municipal file says, and what comparable houses on your actual street closed at.
Notice that the first three are all really the same question, which is how much risk a buyer is taking on. That is why condition moves Freeport prices more than anything else and why two similar-looking houses can be far apart. It is also why the $660,000 median is a poor guide for any individual property.
How selling to us works in Freeport
- 1
You tell us about the house
An address in 11520 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
We come and look at it
One visit, one person, usually under half an hour. On a cape cod or ranch of the age most of Freeport was built, we are mainly looking at the roof, the boiler and the electric rather than the kitchen.
- 3
You get a number in writing
Within 24 hours, as a written figure rather than a range or a "starting around". Take it to a Nassau County agent for a second opinion if you want to. On a house already in showable condition, listing may well beat us, and we would rather you knew that.
- 4
You pick the closing date
Fast if you need fast, or months out if you are waiting on probate, a tenant, or somewhere to move to. Either way you skip the 92 to 107 days a listed Freeport house spends finding a buyer and then waiting on that buyer's mortgage.
What an appraisal is, and what it is not
An appraisal is an opinion of value prepared for a lender, to establish whether the house is adequate security for a specific loan. It is not a sale price and it is not commissioned for you.
A market analysis from an agent is a different document: an estimate of what the house would fetch listed, usually free, and usually the most useful of the three for deciding what to do. An offer is neither. It is what one particular buyer will pay. Confusing these three is behind a lot of frustrated conversations about what a Freeport house is worth.
Why Freeport cash offers come in at different numbers
Three reasons, and they are worth being able to tell apart. Different views on repair cost, which is legitimate. Different exit plans, where a renovator can usually pay more than somebody assigning the contract on. And different intentions about whether the number holds.
That last one is why the highest offer is not automatically the best one. Ask each buyer whether the figure is binding and whether it can change after an inspection, and weigh the answers alongside the number. An offer you can rely on at a slightly lower figure is frequently worth more than a high one you cannot.
Getting a number on a Freeport house without committing to anything
Nothing about asking what your house is worth should oblige you to sell it, to us or to anybody. We put a figure in writing within 24 hours, it costs nothing, and there is no expiry designed to hurry you.
People take our number, go away, talk to family, get an agent's view and come back months later or not at all. That is the normal pattern and it is fine. A number you are pressured to act on immediately is not a valuation, it is a tactic, and you should treat any deadline attached to one accordingly.
Common questions
Will you tell me what my Freeport house is worth even if I do not sell to you?
Yes, in writing, at no cost and with nothing attached. A number you can take to an agent for a second opinion is more useful to you than one you cannot.
Why is your number lower than the online estimate?
Because the estimate is pricing a version of your house with a working roof, current mechanicals and a clean municipal file, and ours is pricing the house that exists. Where those two are the same house the numbers are close. Where they are not, the gap is the work.
Do I have to let you inside to get a number?
Preferably, because a figure from an interior walkthrough is one we can hold. Where the house is unsafe or inaccessible we will work from the exterior, photographs and whatever reports exist, and say plainly that the number carries more uncertainty.