First: Secure It
If the building is masonry and it is open, close the openings properly and do it in days rather than weeks.
The walls are the most valuable thing you own on that site. They remove the demolition, they carry the structure, and they hold the historic eligibility. In the neighbourhoods where brick theft is active, an open damaged building can lose them over a weekend.
Securing is not rehabilitation, so it does not compromise a credit application the way starting work would.
Is That Not the Buyer's Problem Once I Sell?
Second: Find Out If It Is Historic
The State Historic Preservation Office verifies whether a building is a certified historic structure. The City's Cultural Resources Office holds the district boundaries. Both conversations are free.
If the answer is yes, a 25 percent state credit applies to qualified rehabilitation expenditures, rising to 45 percent with the federal credit on income-producing property. On an eligible building that frequently means rehabilitating nets more than any cash offer, including ours.
Why Would You Tell Me That Before Quoting?
And One Thing Not to Do
Do not start clearing, stripping or repairing beyond what safety requires, if there is any chance the building is eligible.
Applicants are advised to wait for signed approval of the proposed scope before undertaking demolition or construction, because the work has to meet the Secretary of the Interior's Standards. After a fire the instinct is exactly the opposite, and that instinct is what costs owners the credits. The statutory position is on our page covering historic credits, brick and condemnation.
What We Check
The shell. Whether the masonry came through, which on a city brick building is most of the file. Mortar condition, parapets, party walls and bowing all matter and none of them is visible from a photograph.
The construction type. Structural masonry or frame with brick veneer. Those are worth very different amounts after a fire and the distinction is not obvious from the street.
The authority. City of St. Louis or St. Louis County, and if the county, which municipality. Separate governments, separate records, separate departments.
The records. The assessor's parcel record for the jurisdiction, year built and construction, and the relevant recorder of deeds for the deed and any lien.
What If I Do Not Know Whether the Walls Are Sound?
What Comes Back
A written figure with every line showing: what a finished building on that site is worth, the cost of getting there, carrying cost, and margin. Where the building is eligible for credits, the email shows the comparison against rehabilitating rather than selling, because that is what you should be weighing our number against.
Then It Is Your Call
No deadline from us, though the building's own clock is real. An open masonry building can be stripped, and where a fire causes significant structural damage the City's Building Division can begin emergency condemnation. Neither is a reason to accept a poor offer and both are reasons not to drift.
Compare figures if you want to. The two questions on our page about how to tell local cash buyers apart work on us as much as on anyone.
Things That Never Happen
No fee at any stage. No request that you clear the site, repair anything or start work first — on an eligible building we would be asking you to forfeit the credits, and we will say so rather than stay quiet. No requirement that your claim be settled. No assignment of the contract to a third party.
Common Questions About the Process
How Long Does It Take?
Address to written figure is usually a few days. Closing depends on title and on which authority holds the records. The insurance claim does not have to be resolved first.
Do I Need to Be in Missouri?
No. Out-of-state owners are common on inherited property and remote closing is routine.
I Have Already Cleared Debris.
Establish the position with the preservation office rather than assuming the credits are gone. How far you have gone matters and they are the people who can tell you.