Selling a house with a tenant in it.

What a lease does to a sale

The buyer takes the house with the tenant in it. The lease — its rent, its end date, its terms — does not change because the owner changed. If the tenancy is month to month, it is still a tenancy. So a buyer prices an occupied house on the rent it actually pays and the terms it actually has, not on the rent the neighbourhood could fetch.

That is why a below-market lease with years left on it lowers what most buyers will pay, and why a house that can be delivered vacant reaches a different buyer pool: people who want to live in it, or renovate it, rather than people who want the income. Neither price is the “real” one. They are prices for two different products, and the comparison calculator lets you put both into the same table.

Showings, inspections and appraisals happen in the tenant’s home. What access you have, and on what notice, is in your lease and in the law that applies to it; read the lease before you promise a buyer anything.

If any unit is rent-stabilized, say so in the first conversation with anyone. It changes the paperwork, the buyer pool and the price, and it is not something to discover at contract.

Where the official rules live

Rules for tenants and owners in New York are published by the State and the City, and they change. Read the current page, not a summary — including this one. The links below go to the official pages; where this page states a rule, it was checked against that page in September 2026.

Official pages

• New York State Homes and Community Renewal — Good Cause Eviction
  The State’s page on the Good Cause Eviction law. Checked September 2026: the protections are mandatory in New York City and municipalities outside the City may opt in. The page publishes the required Good Cause Eviction Law Notices (the most recent dated August 2026).
• NYC Housing Preservation and Development — Good Cause Eviction
  The City’s plain-language page. Checked September 2026: it lists the exemptions, including buildings with 10 or fewer apartments where the owner lives in the building, and owners who own 10 units or fewer in total in New York State; it also lists the written notice a landlord has had to give since 18 August 2024 when offering a lease, not renewing one, raising rent above 5%, or filing an eviction. Whether your house is covered or exempt is a question for the page and for an attorney, not for this one.
• HCR Office of Rent Administration
  The State office that administers rent stabilization and rent control, with its rent regulation fact sheets. If any unit is regulated, the answers come from here.
• NYC Rent Guidelines Board
  Sets the allowed increases on rent-stabilized leases in the City each year; the current order is cited on the property-management page.
• NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection — the FARE Act
  Checked September 2026: since 11 June 2025 a broker who represents the landlord may not charge the broker fee to the tenant on a rental. It applies to rentals, not to the sale of the house — but it matters for what the next owner can expect when re-renting a unit.