Why buyers and lenders both balk
Two things have to survive for a listed sale to close: the buyer's nerve and the buyer's lender. A failed cesspool takes out both at once.
The buyer is picturing the yard dug up and a bill nobody will commit to in advance. The lender is looking at a property that cannot practically be occupied until the waste system works. Either one alone is enough to end a contract, and the house goes back on the Hicksville market with more days on it and a cesspool in its history.
How we help Hicksville owners with a failed cesspool
We buy houses with failed cesspools regularly, which means we already know who does this work properly and roughly what it runs. That is the practical difference between us and a buyer meeting the problem for the first time.
We have sanitary contractors and engineers we have used for years, and we bring them in on our own account after closing rather than asking you to arrange anything. And if it turns out that replacing the cesspool and listing the house on the open market would leave you better off, we will tell you so and give you the name of the contractor we would call.
Why local knowledge changes the number
The Hicksville median has barely moved year over year as of 2026-10, at 3%. Flat is the hardest market to price a fixer into, because there is no upward drift to cover a mistake and no urgency pushing buyers to overlook a problem. A $751,865 median puts Hicksville in the band where buyers are stretching to afford the house and have nothing left for the roof. That is precisely the buyer who walks away from a property needing work, and it is why condition matters more here than the price alone suggests. The median house here goes under contract in about 33 days, which is quick for Long Island. It is also a figure that only applies to property in showable condition.
Hicksville is roughly 43,869 people in Nassau County, ZIP 11801, and the housing stock is mostly cape cod, ranch, hi-ranch. Around Broadway and Old Country Road, most of it is old enough that the mechanicals are on their second or third life. The Hicksville stop pulls buyers who commute, which supports the good houses and does very little for the ones that need a roof. We have been buying across Nassau County for 15+ years. We know what the Hicksville Union Free School District does to a resale price, which blocks still have oil tanks in the ground, and what a house like yours is actually worth here.
Replacing the cesspool first is usually the expensive order
Do not spend money on an inspection or a pump-out for our sake. We are asking for neither.
If the cesspool has already been looked at, bring whatever the contractor wrote down and it saves a conversation. If it has not, we would rather walk the property ourselves and price the system from what we can see. We are buying the cesspool along with the house, so there is nothing you need to prove to us about it beforehand.
What replacing a waste system actually involves
Replacing a waste system is a project rather than a repair. It means design, approvals, excavation, and a yard that looks like a construction site for a while, and on some lots the layout makes it considerably harder than on others.
What is permitted and what it costs turns on the specifics of your parcel, and the two places to get a real answer are your county health department and a sanitary contractor who has walked the property and looked at the cesspool. What we can tell you is that we buy houses with failed cesspools without needing any of that settled first.
How we arrive at a number on a house with a failed cesspool
On a house with a failed cesspool, the number comes from three things: what it will be worth when the work is finished, what the work will cost, and a cushion in case we are wrong on either. That is all there is to it. There is no formula we are keeping from you.
- What it is worth repaired. Not the Hicksville median of $751,865 on its own, but what houses like yours on your street actually closed at recently.
- What the work costs. Roof, boiler, electric, the kitchen and bath. In Hicksville the stock is largely cape cod and ranch, and on houses that age the mechanicals are usually the expensive part rather than the cosmetics.
- How long we will hold it. The median Hicksville house goes under contract in about 33 days once it is showable, then waits 45 to 60 days more on the buyer's lender. Ours has to get to showable first, and we carry taxes and insurance across the whole of it.
- What we are wrong about. Some of what a house needs only shows once the work starts. We price that in, and it is a big part of the gap between a cash offer and a retail sale.
Why this works for us when it would not for you
This is the part cash buyers tend to gloss over. We run millions of dollars of construction a year. That buys materials at contractor pricing and keeps our own crews working through the year, so the same renovation costs us roughly half what it would cost you to hire it out.
That is the business in one line. It is also why renovating before a sale rarely pays: you would buy the same roof and boiler at retail and hope to get it back at resale, which usually does not happen. We do not make our money by paying you less. We make it by building for less.
If the number does not work for you, tell us so. We would rather have that conversation than pressure anyone. We will look at where you are and give you an honest read on your options, including ones that do not involve selling to us. Plenty of sellers are better off with an agent, and we will say so if you are one of them.
No lender, no repair conditions, no sign-off to wait on
A failed cesspool is a privacy problem too, which people rarely mention out loud. A listing means a sign on the lawn in Hicksville, strangers walking through on weekends, and a yard that is visibly torn up or visibly unusable.
There is none of that with us. One visit, a written number, a closing date you choose, and no explaining the cesspool to anybody on the street.
What you do not pay when you sell a house with a failed cesspool
These are the costs of putting a house with a failed cesspool on the market through an agent. None of them apply when you sell to us.
- Agent commission
- $37,593 at 5% of the Hicksville median none
- Seller closing costs
- About $15,037 on a $751,865 sale. We can cover these. none
- Repairs to make it listable
- Everything a buyer would flag, paid for before you list none
- Cleanout and removal
- Charged by the truckload, and done before the first showing none
- Carrying costs while it waits
- Taxes, insurance and utilities for the 78 to 93 days of finding a buyer and waiting on their mortgage none
What to do next about the cesspool at your Hicksville house
New York has disclosure obligations for sellers, and what applies to your situation is a legal question. Ask an attorney about the cesspool before you sell to anyone, ourselves included.
Separately from that: tell us everything. When the cesspool failed, what it did, who has looked at it, what they said. None of it puts us off, and all of it makes the number solid the first time. The deals that fall apart are the ones built on half the story.
Common questions
Do I have to fix the cesspool before you buy a Hicksville house?
Not at all. No repair, no replacement, no pump-out, no inspection. The condition of the cesspool is priced into the offer, and the offer does not move afterward.
What does a new cesspool or septic system cost?
It turns on the lot, the location and what the county health department requires at your address, so any cesspool figure quoted from a web page is a guess. A sanitary contractor who has walked the property will give you a real answer.
The cesspool backed up but the house is still livable. Is that a failure?
Sometimes a backup is a blockage and sometimes it is the cesspool reaching the end of its life, and telling those apart takes somebody who has opened it up. Either way we buy, and either way it is worth knowing which one you have.
A buyer walked away over the cesspool. Does that hurt my chances with you?
Not at all, and it is how a great many people arrive here. A retail buyer walking over a failed cesspool tells us something about that buyer, not about your house.
Do you buy houses on septic as well as cesspools?
Yes. A great deal of Nassau County is on cesspools or septic rather than sewers, and we buy across all of it. Whatever is in your yard, it does not have to be working for us to buy the house.