We Buy Houses in Hialeah

The efficiency question

Efficiencies are part of how Hialeah works. Owners added rooms with their own entrances for an aging parent, a grown child, or a tenant whose rent helped cover the mortgage. Many were built without permits, or under permits that never got a final inspection.

That usually stays quiet until you try to sell. An appraiser may count only the permitted square footage, a lender may decline to finance a house with an illegal unit, and an insurer may object to a second kitchen's wiring. What's left is a small pool of buyers who can actually close.

• We buy with the extra space in place. You don't have to rip out a kitchen, close up a doorway, or legalize anything first.
• Our offer reflects what it would realistically take to permit the unit or return it to its original use, and we show you that math.
• We've spent more than 10 years buying houses in as-is condition, and homes with added units are a routine part of that work.

Someone is renting the back unit

Plenty of Hialeah sellers are landlords without quite meaning to be. A relative, or a friend of a friend, rents the efficiency, sometimes with no written lease and rent paid in cash. If the unit isn't legal, ending that arrangement can get complicated, and a Florida landlord-tenant attorney is worth a call before you act.

You can also sell with the tenant still living there. We ask who is on the property, what they pay, and whether anything is in writing, and we set the closing around the answers.

Duplexes and Miami-Dade's deed surtax

Hialeah also has a good number of true duplexes and small apartment buildings, especially in the older neighborhoods on the east side of the city near the Hialeah Park racetrack. Selling one of these costs more in deed tax than selling a house. Miami-Dade's documentary stamp rate is $0.60 per $100 of the price, and because a duplex isn't a single-family residence, a $0.45 per $100 surtax is added, for $1.05 per $100 in total.

Sellers usually pay the stamps by custom, and Miami-Dade custom puts the owner's title insurance on the buyer. The contract is what decides, so ask for a written estimate of your net before signing.

Older east side, newer west side

Much of east Hialeah is 1950s and 1960s concrete block houses on tight lots, many with original plumbing and electrical and a roof insurers want to inspect. The western part of the city filled in later, with more townhomes and condos that come with association dues, rules, and approvals. We buy on both sides.

Hialeah Gardens and Miami Lakes border Hialeah but are separate municipalities, so a property's permits and any code case sit with whichever one it's actually in.

Frequently asked questions