Sell your Ulster County house as it stands
From the old streets of Kingston to a cabin on a dirt road outside Woodstock, Ulster County houses come in every age and condition. We buy them for cash, directly from the owner, with lawyers on both sides handling the closing whenever you are set to go.
Who you would be dealing with
Velocity House Buyers is a two-man operation, Greg Helbeck and Brett Gennarelli, based in Montgomery in neighboring Orange County. Ulster is part of our home region: up the Thruway and across the Shawangunks, close enough that we know the difference between a house near Uptown Kingston and one down by the Rondout.
We do not list homes and we do not collect commissions. We buy the property ourselves, then renovate it and either resell it or keep it as a rental. That is why we can take on a house with a sagging porch, a wet cellar or forty years of belongings inside.
Send the address with the form, or call (845) 367-4898. A conversation costs you nothing.
Old houses are the norm here
Ulster County had 181,851 residents at the 2020 census, spread across a city, a long list of towns and some genuinely remote countryside. What ties a lot of its housing together is age. In 1777 Kingston became the seat of the new state government, and that October British troops set the town on fire. Today the Stockade District, Midtown and the Rondout waterfront hold many houses that are well over a century old.
Older housing is not a problem by itself. It just tends to come with a familiar list of findings:
- fieldstone or brick foundations that let in water every spring
- original or patched knob-and-tube wiring and undersized electrical service
- steam or gravity heating systems, sometimes on oil
- slate, metal or multi-layer asphalt roofs at the end of their life
- lead paint, which matters most when a buyer has young children or plans to rent the house out
A buyer with a conventional mortgage, or a lender’s appraiser, may balk at several of those at once. We price them in and handle them after we own the house.
Across the county, place by place
Kingston. The county seat and the only city. Two-family houses, row houses and big Victorians, many of them rentals or inherited. If yours has tenants, that is fine with us.
New Paltz. The village and the college around it mean plenty of student and faculty rentals. Many of the New Paltz owners we hear from are landlords worn down by the August turnover.
Saugerties, Ulster and Esopus. A mix of village homes, postwar ranches and houses near the river or the creeks.
Ellenville, Wawarsing and the southwest. Older village housing along Route 209, some of it vacant, plus rural houses in the hills around it.
Woodstock, Shandaken, Olive and the Catskills side. Second homes, weekend cabins and converted camps. These often come with a private well, a septic system, a steep driveway and a seasonal road, all of which can make financing harder. We buy them anyway.
Highland, Marlborough, Plattekill and the river towns south of Kingston. Older farmhouses, mid-century homes and orchard country close to the Mid-Hudson Bridge and our side of the river.
Ulster’s tax bills and the county offices
The way Ulster collects property tax catches people off guard, especially new owners and heirs, so it is worth spelling out.
- January: the general bill arrives, covering county, city or town, and special district taxes. Town residents pay it to the town tax collector.
- June: homes inside the villages of Ellenville, New Paltz and Saugerties also get a separate village tax bill.
- September: school tax bills go out. Most districts collect through their own school tax collector. Kingston City School District bills are sent on September 15 and can be paid without penalty through October 15.
- November and after: unpaid central school district taxes go to the County Finance Department for a short window, and then they are re-levied, which means they get added to the next January bill.
If any of those bills went unpaid, do not let that keep you from calling. Overdue taxes become part of the payoff figures, and they are cleared from your proceeds at the closing table.
Deeds, mortgages and satisfactions of mortgage for the county are recorded at the Ulster County Clerk’s office on Fair Street in Kingston. The title company runs its search against those records and sends the new deed there after the sale.
What selling to us looks like in Ulster County
Most Ulster sales follow the same pattern. We talk on the phone first, partly about the house and partly about you: when you want to be out, what is owed, whether anyone lives there. Then Greg or Brett drives up and walks the property. For a rural place we also want to see the well, the septic area, outbuildings and the access road, so plan on a bit more time.
A written offer typically follows within a day. It spells out the price, the closing date we propose and who pays which costs. Like every New York sale, ours closes with attorneys on both sides, and a title company pays off any mortgage, lien or back taxes out of the sale proceeds. Expect to fill out the state’s Property Condition Disclosure Statement too; there is no longer a $500 credit alternative.
If the house is free of title problems, a closing roughly seven days after signing is realistic. If you need to wait for a school year to end, for an estate to be settled, or for the next house to be finished, the date moves to suit you.
And if the mortgage is already in default, know that New York foreclosures are slow by design. Lenders must send a 90-day notice before filing, the case goes through the state Supreme Court, and there is a mandatory settlement conference for homeowners. Using that time to sell can protect the equity you have built.
Selling from out of state? Many Ulster houses belong to people who live in the city or farther away, whether they bought a weekend place or inherited one. You do not need to be here for the visit or the cleanout; a neighbor can open the door for our walk-through, and your attorney can tell you how to handle the closing documents from where you live.
Ulster County questions we hear
Do you buy cabins and second homes in the Catskills part of Ulster County?
Yes. Weekend houses and cabins in towns like Woodstock, Shandaken and Olive are welcome, including ones on private wells and septic, on seasonal roads, or full of furniture you would rather not move.
When are school taxes due in Kingston?
Kingston City School District tax bills are sent on September 15, and the first payment is due without penalty by October 15. Other districts in Ulster County set their own final dates, so check the bill or ask your school tax collector.
I live in New Paltz village. Why did I get a tax bill in June?
Homes in the villages of Ellenville, New Paltz and Saugerties receive a village tax bill in June in addition to the January general bill and the September school bill. At a sale, all of these are adjusted between buyer and seller.
Will you buy a Kingston two-family with tenants?
Yes. We buy multifamily houses with the tenants in place, whether or not they are current on rent. Share the leases and rent amounts on the first call so they can be reflected in the offer.
I inherited a house in Ulster County but live far away. Do I need to come back to sell it?
Not for the visit or the cleanout. Any trusted person holding a spare key can open up for the walk-through, and the contents can stay. Ask your attorney how the closing signatures can be handled from a distance; the sale itself waits until the Surrogate's Court has given the executor authority to sell.
Other places we buy, and more to read
Just south of Ulster is our home county; see selling in Orange County. Across the river, we also buy throughout Dutchess County.
If you are dealing with an estate, tenants or a foreclosure notice, our page on the situations we help with is a good next stop, and how it works lays out each step of a sale.