We Buy Houses in Orange County

The 2025 revaluation

Orange County revalues every four years. The 2025 revaluation, effective January 1, 2025, put countywide home value growth at about 52 percent since 2021, and appeals more than doubled from the previous cycle. The next revaluation is scheduled for 2029.

Even with a lower tax rate, many bills went up. For long-time owners, retirees, and heirs holding a house nobody lives in, that is often what prompts a sale. Delinquent taxes are paid from the closing proceeds.

Student rentals and the Chapel Hill occupancy limit

Chapel Hill allows no more than four unrelated people to live in one dwelling unit, and the town enforces it with daily fines. A house rented by the bedroom to more students than that is worth less to a buyer than its current rent roll suggests, because the buyer has to underwrite the legal occupancy.

We buy student rentals near campus, occupied or between leases, and price them on legal occupancy and condition. Leases and security deposits transfer at closing.

Older houses and Hillsborough's historic district

Chapel Hill and Carrboro have mill-era cottages, 1950s and 1960s ranches, and 1970s contemporaries on wooded lots, many with crawlspace moisture, original systems, and roofs past their life. Hillsborough's historic core is a local historic district, where exterior changes need approval from the town before work starts.

Rural Orange County is largely inside water-supply watersheds, where rules limit impervious surface on a lot. Combined with wells and septic, that narrows what a buyer can add, and it is one reason some rural houses sit unsold.

Orange County property we buy

• Student rentals near UNC, occupied or vacant
• Mill-era cottages and older ranches in Chapel Hill and Carrboro
• Houses in Hillsborough's historic district
• Rural houses on wells and septic in watershed areas
• Houses whose owners can no longer carry the post-2025 tax bill
• Inherited houses and estates
• Condos and townhomes needing updates

Records, courts, and closing in Orange County

Hillsborough is the county seat. Deeds and deeds of trust are recorded with the Orange County Register of Deeds, foreclosure hearings and estate files run through the clerk of superior court in Hillsborough, and the county tax office sets values. Occupancy and zoning questions go to the town where the property sits.

A licensed North Carolina attorney handles the closing, and recording generally happens before funds are disbursed.

Frequently asked questions