The real estate market is crazy, and selling a property as part of an estate becomes more complicated when family members are scattered across different states.
Handling an Estate Sale When Family Members Live Out of State
Start by figuring out what the place is actually worth in today’s market, since out-of-state family members often rely on outdated or inaccurate price assumptions. For an estate sale, align everyone on the real market value before discussing who buys, sells, or manages the process, since disagreements usually stem from mismatched expectations rather than the sale itself. A market analysis from a real estate agent helps settle this early, especially when family members can’t easily view the property in person.
Estate Sale With Family Out of State
Understanding What the Property Is Actually Worth
One of the first things to consider is whether you understand the home’s market value and how you arrived at that conclusion. There are so many ways to determine market value.
Typically, people get their market value from a couple of different places. One is recent sales in the neighborhood, seeing a flyer and a sign go out with a listed price, though people don’t always know what the home ended up selling for.
The second place is an online algorithm, like Zillow or Redfin. The last place to look for value is a tax assessment, since that’s typically going to be a lot lower than what somebody would pay for the house.
The Pros and Cons of Selling to a Family Member
The pros are that you can save money, but the scenario has to make sense: you need to understand the value and work the math backwards based on the fees involved and what the property would actually sell for on the open market.
A market analysis from a real estate agent can help with that research, and you may realize this is harder than you thought, or that you could make more listings on the open market.
There’s a lot involved in listing a house beyond putting a sign in the ground and executing an agreement, literally five pages’ worth of tasks involving a lot of marketing that wouldn’t happen when selling directly.
There’s also the workload and the risk of missing something in the agreement, certain things that need to be in that agreement, which could favor one party or the other in a dispute later, something you may not know unless you consult a real estate attorney.
When Convenience and Risk Come Into Play
If it’s about convenience, that’s a different factor, especially with a family member, since you’re probably not going to end up in a dispute with family. But scenarios do come up where a buyer doesn’t qualify or isn’t willing to pay what the open market would provide, so starting with knowing that market value matters.
There have also been scenarios where people don’t want to close at the end of a transaction, after money has already been spent moving on, like a down payment on another house already made, and then the other person decides not to close. If everything works out and there’s an agreement on giving some kind of discount, at least know and understand what that discount looks like, or make sure the buyer pays top dollar and everyone knows what that number is.
How an Estate Sale Works
The first thing when planning an estate sale is not to throw anything away. Trash can’t be sold, but junk can be sold, and that adds up in the sale. Nothing should be thrown away until a company comes in to evaluate the sale.
Checking a company’s experience matters, along with whether they’re licensed and bonded, and whether there are any extra fees. Some companies have a lower percentage, but by the time fees are added, that affects the outcome. A company shouldn’t be judged by fees alone, but by all the services offered and their expertise in estate sales.
Items wanted from the sale should be identified and taken beforehand. Going through the sale to pick out desired items and identifying those, while leaving everything else as it is, works best. No boxing up or extra preparation is needed, since that just creates more work for the estate sale company.
The estate sale company’s process starts with coming to the home and looking around at all the different items, opening drawers and cupboards, to determine whether there’s enough property left for the sale to make money for both the company and the estate. Once that’s decided, the calendar gets checked to determine when a two-day sale can be held, typically Saturday and Sunday.
After the sale is complete, any remaining personal property gets looked at by a buyout company, which offers a dollar amount and takes everything that’s left. Once all the items are out of the house, the next phase of preparing the home can begin.
