We Buy Houses in Fort Lauderdale, As They Sit

Fort Lauderdale is the largest of Broward County's 31 municipalities, about 36 square miles from the beach to I-95 and beyond, threaded by 165 miles of inland waterways. Its housing shows its age: the median home here was built in 1973, and roughly two of every three went up before 1980. So when a house in Coral Ridge, Imperial Point or Melrose Park comes to us, the conversation is usually about a roof, an open permit or a kitchen nobody has touched in decades, not about staging.

It is also a city of long ownership. The typical owner has been in the house since 2012, and four of every ten owner households are headed by someone 65 or older. In practice that means the house often reaches us through an estate, with the case filed at the Seventeenth Circuit's probate division downtown, and we work alongside the estate's attorney and pay that attorney at closing.

Before closing, the title company pulls the City's lien and expenditure report, which the Finance Department delivers through a system called Conduits, and checks permit history on LauderBuild, the City's online permit portal. Code cases are heard by a Special Magistrate, unpaid fines can become liens on the property, and the same magistrate can reduce them on application. We read all of it before the offer, so the number we give you already has it inside.