We Buy Houses in Union City, NJ

Selling Where Four Households in Five Rent

Union City squeezes almost 67,000 people into 1.29 square miles, and the 2020 census works out to more than 53,000 residents for every square mile. Only about one home in five is lived in by its owner. More than half of residents were born abroad, and over 80% use a language besides English at home. For a seller, that profile usually means one thing: the property is a rental, or partly one. A frame two-family with the owner upstairs, a brick building with six apartments, a basement unit nobody is sure was ever legal. We buy all of them.

• 66,656residents estimated for July 2025 (68,589 counted in 2020)
• 19.1%owner-occupancy, among the lowest in Hudson County (ACS 2020–2024)
• $471,600median value of homes their owners live in (ACS 2020–2024)
• $1,537median gross monthly rent (ACS 2020–2024)

Source: U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts, Union City city, New Jersey.

A median is a midpoint, not a price. What a particular Union City building is worth to us depends on the number of legal units, the rents on file, the boiler and roof, and what the city's records say. You get one figure in writing after a single visit, with the reasoning behind it.

Rent Stabilization and the Annual Registration

Union City has a rent stabilization ordinance, rewritten in 2017 and again in 2019, administered by the Rent Leveling Board at City Hall on Palisade Avenue. Landlords file an annual registration statement, either side can ask the board for the legal rent of a unit, and an owner who claims an exemption for living in the building signs a residency affidavit. A buyer's attorney will ask for that history, because a rent charged above the legal amount can turn into a refund claim later.

None of this has to be perfect for us to buy. We review whatever registration is on file, account for any gap in our price, and take over the building with its tenants and leases in place. New Jersey law keeps a residential tenancy alive through a sale, and the security deposits, with interest, are handed to the new owner at closing. If you are tired of being the landlord, our guide to selling a rental property explains the state rules in more detail.

Inspections the City Asks For

Union City's Community Development Agency issues an Inspection Approval Certificate, known as the IAC, which certifies that an apartment meets the city's building, health and fire codes. The application asks who the last tenant was, when the unit was vacated and who is moving in, it must be notarized, and the fee is $75 per unit. The owner is expected to bring an updated rent registration with it. In practice, that means an apartment that turns over gets inspected, and a building whose registration is out of date has trouble re-renting.

The Building Department also collects payment for lead paint inspections of rental units, with separate payments for buildings of four units or fewer and for five units or more, and it keeps the registration forms for multiple dwellings. Selling a one- or two-family house also takes the smoke and carbon monoxide alarm certificate state law calls for. The city lists a Fire Prevention Bureau among its departments but does not publish its resale procedure online, so when you sell to us we contact the bureau, book the inspection and bring the alarms up to code ourselves.

Vacant Buildings and Foreclosures Pay a Registration Fee

Two Union City ordinances charge owners when a building is empty or in foreclosure. Under the vacant and abandoned property rules adopted in 2014, registration costs $500 the first time, then $1,500, $3,000 and $5,000 at successive renewals, and the owner has to name a managing agent with an office in New Jersey. Under a 2023 ordinance, every property in foreclosure must be registered with the Office of Rent Control for $500 a year, plus another $2,000 a year if it is also vacant or abandoned.

Those charges grow the longer a building sits. If you inherited an empty house, or the bank has filed against you and you have moved out, selling sooner stops the clock. Unpaid registration charges and other municipal liens are paid from the price at closing. Homeowners in foreclosure who sign with us keep a ten-business-day right to cancel, and our foreclosure page lays out the court timeline.

Taxes: Four Due Dates and an Early Tax Sale

Union City taxes are due on the 1st of February, May, August and November, with ten calendar days of grace counted only from the original due date. After that, interest runs from the due date at 8% a year on arrears up to $1,500 and 18% beyond that. When bills go out late, the city makes the payment due 25 days after mailing instead. The rule sellers should notice most: any municipal lien still unpaid on November 11 can be put into the tax sale at any time after that date, and once an account is in tax sale or lien status, the city takes only certified funds.

The city has also gone through a reassessment meant to bring every property to full market value. On the state's 2025 table, Union City's general rate was 1.848 per $100 and its effective rate 1.859, close together because assessments now track market prices. At settlement, the title company requests a redemption figure for any lien, pays the quarters due, and the city's own rule is that the tax bill passes to the new owner. If a lien has already been sold, our tax lien guide covers what happens next.

Water and Sewer on a Multi-Family

Veolia supplies Union City's water and reads the meters; the North Hudson Sewerage Authority bills sewer service from those readings. The authority holds the owner responsible for every sewer charge even where tenants with their own meters receive the bills, and any overdue sewer balance can end up in the city's tax sale. Before closing, Veolia takes a final reading and the authority prepares a final sewer bill from it, a process it says takes one to two weeks. We order both as soon as the date is set.

How It Works When You Sell to Us

• Call or enter the address. Share the unit count, the occupants and the rents.
• We visit once, see the units the tenants agree to show, and send a written price the next day in most cases.
• If you accept, we open title, request the alarm inspection and gather the rent file and final utility readings.
• Settlement happens at a title office or remotely with a notary, including from outside the country; a seller who lives outside New Jersey also files the state's estimated-tax form at closing.

Union City is one of twelve municipalities in Hudson County. We also buy right next door in West New York and Weehawken.