Sell your Lindenhurst house as-is. On your schedule.

A railroad town from day one

Lindenhurst started in 1870 as Breslau, named by its German settlers after the city they came from. Thomas and Abby Welwood bought up the farmland and sold it off as building lots, and the South Side Railroad line to Babylon is what made it work: trains brought in lumber and buyers from the city. Residents voted to change the name to Lindenhurst in 1891, after the linden trees, and in 1923 they incorporated as a village.

That history is still in the street grid. Wellwood Avenue, the main road through downtown, carries the founders' name, spelled with two Ls instead of their one. The LIRR station still anchors the village center, and the blocks within walking distance of it are some of the oldest housing in town.

Four neighborhoods, one ZIP code

Here's something that trips up a lot of sellers. The 11757 mailing address covers four different places: the Village of Lindenhurst, the hamlet of North Lindenhurst, Venetian Shores, and American Venice, which is actually part of Copiague.

Which one your house is in decides who issues your permits and certificates of occupancy. Inside the Village, it's Village Hall on South Wellwood Avenue. Outside it, it's the Town of Babylon. When an old deck, a finished basement, or a second kitchen shows up in a title search, knowing which office to deal with saves weeks. We sort that out for you.

South of Montauk Highway

The canal neighborhoods along the Great South Bay are what a lot of people picture when they think of Lindenhurst: bulkheads, boats in the backyard, a short ride to Venetian Shores Park or the village marina.

They're also where Hurricane Sandy hit hardest in October 2012. Reports at the time described 6 to 8 feet of water in parts of the village and hundreds of homes south of Montauk Highway flooded. A year later, hundreds of families were still waiting for their houses to be raised. Many have since been elevated or rebuilt. Some are still carrying old water damage, unfinished lifts, or open permits from that work. We buy those houses as they are.

North of Sunrise Highway

Much of North Lindenhurst is capes, ranches, and high ranches on regular suburban lots. A development known as the "Hundred Homes" went up off Wellwood Avenue as early as 1936. Today a lot of those houses are on their second or third owner and still have original roofs, oil heat, and dated electrical and plumbing. That's often the reason an inherited house here needs more work than the family wants to take on.