We Buy Houses & Buildings in St. George, Staten Island

Housing Stock

What St. George Is Built From

St. George is Staten Island’s front door and its densest neighborhood. The waterfront along Richmond Terrace holds the civic center: Borough Hall (1906), the former Richmond County Courthouse, the newer courthouse complex and the St. George Ferry Terminal, which also serves the Staten Island Railway and most North Shore bus routes. Behind that civic edge, the streets climb steeply, and the housing changes block by block.

On the upper streets, especially St. Marks Place, Westervelt Avenue, Carroll Place, Hamilton Avenue and Phelps Place, you find the freestanding Queen Anne, Shingle Style, Italianate and Colonial Revival houses that gave the area its 19th-century reputation as a suburb with harbor views. Lower down, near Bay Street, Hyatt Street, Central Avenue and Stuyvesant Place, the stock shifts to prewar apartment buildings, including Art Deco buildings from the 1930s, mixed-use buildings and the commercial blocks that serve ferry commuters.

How the Ferry Shaped the Neighborhood

St. George was originally part of New Brighton, a resort and suburb laid out in the 1830s. Its name came with the consolidated ferry and railroad terminal of the 1880s, which promoter Erastus Wiman named for the financier George Law. When the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge opened in 1964, traffic shifted to the expressway and the commercial core lost some of its pull, one reason many older buildings here carry deferred maintenance.

Zoning

Zoning Context in St. George

St. George is the most heavily regulated corner of Staten Island from a zoning point of view, because several layers overlap. The civic and commercial core is mapped as the Special St. George District, adopted by the City Council in October 2008. It was designed to encourage reuse of vacant office buildings and to allow taller, slimmer buildings oriented to protect harbor views, with ground-floor retail required on designated commercial streets and limits on open parking lots.

South along Bay Street, the 2019 Bay Street Corridor rezoning, approved by the City Council in June 2019, covers the stretch that links St. George with Tompkinsville and Stapleton. Up the hill, much of the residential area is inside the Special Hillsides Preservation District, created in 1987 to limit erosion and protect steep slopes and trees on the North Shore. The entire borough is also a Lower Density Growth Management Area, which affects parking, yards and lot rules in lower-density districts.

What This Means for a Sale

The same house can be worth very different amounts depending on which rules apply to its lot. A deep commercial lot near the terminal may carry development value; a hillside lot may need review before new construction; a landmarked house needs Landmarks Preservation Commission approval for exterior changes. City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, adopted in December 2024, applies here too, but most of Staten Island kept its existing parking requirements, and accessory dwelling units are restricted in flood zones and some historic district situations. Confirm specifics for your lot with a zoning professional or attorney.

Regulated Buildings

Rent-Stabilized and Tenant-Occupied Buildings

Most of Staten Island’s housing is one- and two-family homes, so rent-stabilized buildings are relatively rare across the borough. St. George is an exception to the island pattern: its prewar apartment buildings near the civic center are among the places on Staten Island where you are most likely to find regulated apartments. Buildings with six or more units built before 1974 are generally covered by rent stabilization unless they were deregulated or exempt, but the status of any specific apartment should be confirmed from the registration history.

Since the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act, owners have had few ways to raise regulated rents, while insurance, taxes and repair costs have kept rising. We buy regulated buildings with tenants in place and price them on the actual rent roll. Our rent-stabilized building page explains how.

Far more common here is a two- or three-family house with a long-term tenant on one floor. We take over existing tenancies at closing, and if a tenant has stopped paying, our guide to selling with tenants who are not paying explains your options.

Where We Buy

Where We Buy in St. George

We buy on every block of St. George, from the waterfront to the top of the hill. These are the areas we see most often.

• The civic center and ferry blocks: Richmond Terrace, Stuyvesant Place, Hyatt Street, Central Avenue and the lower end of Bay Street
• The historic district: St. Marks Place, Westervelt Avenue, Carroll Place, Hamilton Avenue and Phelps Place
• Fort Hill: the high ground above the terminal, around Fort Place and the top of St. Marks Place
• Victory Boulevard frontage: the commercial and mixed-use blocks where Victory Boulevard begins its climb inland
• Ward Hill: Nixon Avenue, Ward Avenue, Edgar Terrace and the surrounding hillside streets

Ward Hill

Ward Hill is the northernmost of the ridge of hills that runs down the middle of Staten Island, and it rises directly behind St. George. It is named for Caleb T. Ward, who bought land at the top of the hill in 1826. The Caleb T. Ward Mansion at 141 Nixon Avenue, a Greek Revival house built around 1835, is a designated New York City landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. For generations the hill was home to many of the island’s civic and political figures, and its streets, including Nixon Avenue, Ward Avenue and Edgar Terrace, still hold large detached houses on generous, often sloping lots.

The western face of Ward Hill drops in a sharp cliff above Victory Boulevard in Tompkinsville, and the whole hill sits inside the Special Hillsides Preservation District. That matters to sellers: new construction, additions, retaining walls and tree removal on steep lots can require additional review, and older houses here sometimes have drainage, foundation or retaining-wall issues that scare off retail buyers. We buy Ward Hill homes as-is and account for those conditions directly in our offer.

Inherited Property

Selling an Inherited Home in St. George

Many of the houses that change hands in St. George and Ward Hill come out of estates, often passed to children who live off the island, with the house vacant or partly rented by the time anyone decides what to do.

The Surrogate’s Court Is Around the Corner

Staten Island estates go through the Richmond County Surrogate’s Court at 18 Richmond Terrace, directly across from the ferry terminal. If there is a will, the court issues letters testamentary to the executor named in it. If there is no will, it issues letters of administration to an administrator. Either way, those letters are what give someone authority to sign a contract and deed for the estate. Some letters of administration are limited and require court permission before real estate is sold, so ask the estate attorney what yours allow.

Common St. George Estate Situations

• Siblings who disagree about selling, renting or keeping the house
• Heirs who live out of state and cannot manage a vacant house from a distance
• Carrying costs, insurance, taxes and water bills piling up on an empty Victorian
• Original kitchens, old wiring, roofs and porches that need work before any retail sale
• A two-family with a tenant upstairs that the estate does not want to manage

We buy inherited homes as-is, so nobody has to clean out, repair or stage the house. We can arrange access for inspections without heirs traveling, and we time the closing to the estate’s schedule. For a full walk-through of the process, read our guide to selling inherited property on Staten Island. This is general information, not legal advice; the estate’s attorney should confirm what the letters allow.

Why Owners Sell

Why St. George Owners Sell to Us

Owners here usually come to us because a conventional sale is complicated, not because they want the lowest-effort option. These are the situations we see most in St. George.

• A large Victorian that needs a roof, porch, heating system or full restoration
• Landmark rules that make a retail buyer nervous about renovation costs
• A mixed-use building with a vacant storefront on Bay Street or Victory Boulevard
• Open violations, expired permits or work done without permits
• A hillside house with retaining wall, drainage or foundation problems
• Tenants in place that the owner does not want to remove
• Owners who moved off the island and want a clean, private sale

Open HPD or DOB violations do not stop a sale; our guide to selling a building with violations explains how they are handled.

Potential

Development Potential Around the Terminal

St. George has seen more new construction in recent years than most of Staten Island. Empire Outlets opened next to the ferry terminal in 2019, the ballpark on Richmond Terrace is home to the Staten Island FerryHawks, and the first phase of Lighthouse Point at 5 Bay Street, a mixed-use project with apartments and commercial space, finished construction in 2025. The failed New York Wheel project, cancelled in 2018, left a waterfront parcel that remains part of the conversation about the area’s future.

For owners, that activity means some lots near the terminal and on the commercial streets have value as development or conversion sites, not just as houses. We look at what the Special St. George District or Bay Street Corridor rules, a landmark designation or a hillside site would allow. See our guide to development site value.

Your Options

Your Options for Selling a St. George Property

Listing With a Broker

If your house is in good condition, vacant and has clear title, listing it may net you more. A well-kept Victorian in the historic district or a renovated two-family near the ferry draws owner-occupants who pay for the location. The trade-offs are time, showings, inspection repairs and financing risk.

Renovating or Developing It Yourself

Restoring a house or building on a lot yourself can make sense if you have capital, time and tolerance for landmark review, hillside rules and contractor risk.

Selling Directly to Us

Selling to us makes the most sense when the property needs work, has tenants or is tied up in an estate, or when privacy and certainty matter more than the last dollar. Our off-market sale guide compares the approaches.

How It Works

How Selling to Us Works

• Tell us about the property. Use the form or call. We respond within one business day.
• We review it. We look at the lot, zoning, landmark status, leases and condition, and arrange a visit if needed, including access for out-of-state owners.
• You get a written offer. No obligation, no fees to you for the offer, no pressure.
• Attorneys handle the contract. Your attorney and ours draft and review the contract.
• You choose the closing date. We close on the schedule that works for you, the estate or your tenants.

You can start at Sell Your Property or read more about what we buy.

Market Context

The St. George Market

St. George does not behave like the rest of Staten Island. Most of the borough is detached and semi-detached houses, owner-occupied and car-dependent. St. George has more renters, more apartment buildings and more people who commute by ferry than anywhere else on the island. That mix gives it a broader buyer pool than many neighborhoods, but also more complicated properties: mixed-use buildings, landmarked houses, hillside lots and tenant-occupied multi-families.

We do not publish price claims or sales statistics. Value depends on the lot, its zoning, condition and occupancy. What we can tell you is what we would pay, in writing, after looking at your property. See also our North Shore overview.