We Buy Houses & Buildings in Wingate, Brooklyn

Housing Stock

What Wingate Is Built From

Wingate is a neighborhood of attached houses and prewar apartment buildings on a regular grid. The east-west streets, among them Lefferts Avenue, Sterling Street, Midwood Street, Maple Street, Rutland Road, Fenimore Street and Hawthorne Street, are lined with two- and three-story rowhouses, many in brick or limestone and many built as two- or three-family homes. The avenues, especially Clarkson Avenue and the stretch near Nostrand Avenue, carry larger apartment buildings.

The neighborhood has long been home to a large Caribbean community, and much of its housing has been owned by the same families for decades. That makes inherited rowhouses, owner-occupied two-families with long-term tenants, and buildings with deferred maintenance a large share of what comes up for sale.

Typical Property Types

• Two- and three-family brick rowhouses on Rutland Road, Midwood Street and Maple Street
• Limestone single-family and two-family rows on the blocks near New York Avenue
• Five- and six-story prewar apartment buildings on Clarkson Avenue
• Walk-ups with six to twenty units between Nostrand and Utica Avenues
• Mixed-use buildings on Nostrand, Rogers and Utica Avenues

Pigtown: Wingate’s Original Name

For much of the 19th century, this area was known as Pigtown. It sat at the southern edge of the City of Brooklyn, beside the Town of Flatbush, and was mostly open land where poor Irish and Italian immigrants kept small livestock farms and lived in shanties. Historical accounts generally place Pigtown between Malbone Street (now Empire Boulevard) and Midwood Street, and between Nostrand and Albany Avenues, though the edges shifted. The Kings County institutions on Clarkson Avenue, including the hospital that grew out of the county almshouse established around 1830, were its neighbors to the south.

As the street grid, sewers and subway arrived in the early 20th century, rowhouses and apartment buildings filled the old farm lots and the name faded. In the 2000s the area came to be called Wingate, after Wingate Park and the former George W. Wingate High School, both named for George Wood Wingate, a Civil War veteran who helped found the Public School Athletic League. The high school building and the park were built on the site of the former Kingston Avenue Hospital, whose buildings were demolished in 1954. Many older residents still use the Pigtown name, and it shows up in deeds and family histories.

Zoning

Zoning Context in Wingate

Wingate’s residential blocks generally carry medium-density residential zoning, with commercial overlays along Nostrand, Rogers and Utica Avenues and commercial zoning along Empire Boulevard. The 2009 Flatbush rezoning covered blocks to the south and west, and Empire Boulevard has drawn new rezoning proposals and calls for a corridor study since 2025, but Wingate itself has not had a comprehensive rezoning in recent years.

City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, adopted in December 2024, applies here too. The Universal Affordability Preference, reduced parking requirements and new rules for accessory dwelling units can change what a deep lot, a corner or an underbuilt site is worth. Large public projects nearby, including the redevelopment of the Kingsboro Psychiatric Center campus farther east on Clarkson Avenue into a mixed-use housing complex, show how much new housing is planned for this part of Brooklyn.

Zoning, lot coverage and certificate-of-occupancy questions are specific to each parcel. Confirm the details for your property with a zoning professional or attorney before relying on them.

Regulated Buildings

Selling a Rent-Stabilized Building in Wingate

Most of Wingate’s prewar apartment buildings were built before 1974 with six or more units, so most have rent-stabilized apartments. Since the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act, vacancy increases and most other ways to raise regulated rents are gone. At the same time, taxes, insurance, fuel and repair costs have kept rising, and the gap has squeezed many long-time owners.

We buy these buildings in their current condition. We price from the registered rents, the actual rent roll, the state of the boiler, roof and facade, and any HPD or DOB violations. Long-term tenants, unfinished repairs or a pending HCR case do not stop us from making an offer.

If you own a newer building that received 421-a benefits, the program stopped accepting new projects in 2022 and was succeeded by 485-x in 2024, but existing 421-a buildings stay under their benefit schedules and affordability rules. Our 421-a building page covers how we buy them.

Where We Buy

Where We Buy in Wingate

We buy on every block of Wingate. These are the sub-areas we see most often:

• Empire Boulevard edge — Lefferts Avenue and Sterling Street just south of Empire Boulevard, near the 71st Precinct
• Nostrand Avenue corridor — mixed-use buildings and walk-ups near the Sterling Street and Winthrop Street 2/5 stations
• Rutland Road & Midwood Street — the rowhouse blocks between New York and Brooklyn Avenues
• Wingate Park blocks — Brooklyn Avenue, Rutland Road and Fenimore Street around the park and the Wingate high school campus
• Clarkson Avenue — prewar apartment buildings facing the Kings County Hospital and SUNY Downstate campuses
• Winthrop Street — houses and small buildings along the hospital’s northern edge
• Utica & Troy Avenue end — rowhouses and walk-ups at the eastern edge, where Wingate meets Crown Heights and East Flatbush

Why Owners Sell

Why Wingate Owners Sell to Us

• Inherited rowhouses — family homes left to heirs who live elsewhere, sometimes abroad, who do not want to manage tenants
• Tired landlords — owners of two- and three-families who have rented the upper floors for decades and want to stop
• Regulated rent squeeze — apartment-building owners whose stabilized rents no longer cover operating costs
• Basement and C of O problems — houses with unpermitted units or legal questions that make a conventional sale hard
• Violations and liens — open HPD or DOB violations, ECB fines, water charges or tax liens
• Moving on — owners relocating or retiring who want one clean, quick sale

Each of these makes a public listing slower and less certain. A direct sale means one buyer, one price and a closing date you choose.

Potential

Where the Value Is in Wingate

Wingate has the 2 and 5 trains on Nostrand Avenue, Prospect Park within walking distance of the western blocks, and a stable base of renters tied to Kings County Hospital and SUNY Downstate. That gives well-run multifamily buildings steady demand. Rowhouses that have been owned by one family for decades are often good candidates for full renovation or for converting between one, two and three families.

Underbuilt lots, corner sites and commercial parcels on Empire Boulevard and Nostrand Avenue are where development value is most likely to show up, particularly under City of Yes. Every site still depends on its own zoning, tenants and condition, and we look at all of it before we make an offer.

Your Options

Your Options for Selling Wingate Property

List With a Broker

A vacant, renovated rowhouse can sell well on the open market. Listing still means repairs, showings, a buyer’s mortgage contingency and usually several months before closing. Occupied houses, buildings with violations or properties with C of O problems sharply narrow the buyer pool.

Renovate or Develop Yourself

If you have capital and time, renovating or legalizing units can raise value. It also means permits, contractors, carrying costs and risk, and working with tenants in place adds another layer of difficulty.

Sell Directly to Red Hook Development

We buy as-is, with tenants, violations and all. The process is confidential, you pay no commission, and you choose the closing date. You are welcome to compare our offer against a listing first. See what we buy or submit your property.

How It Works

How Selling to Us Works

• Tell us about the property — address, units, rents and condition, by form, phone or email
• We review it — zoning, tax records, violations, registered rents and recent sales
• Walkthrough — one visit, scheduled around your tenants
• Written cash offer — clear terms, no financing contingency
• Close with your attorney — usually in about three to five weeks once title is clear

Market Context

The Wingate Market

Wingate draws buyers looking for rowhouses and multi-family homes near Prospect Park and the 2/5 line at prices below the landmarked Lefferts Manor blocks to the west. Renovated, delivered-vacant houses get the most attention. Occupied buildings, regulated apartment buildings and houses with legal or physical problems sell to a much smaller group of investors.

Those are the properties we focus on. We also buy across the surrounding neighborhoods: Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Crown Heights South, Crown Heights and East Flatbush.