Your Parents Left You Their Old House. What Should You Do With It?
Your parents or grandparents have lived in that old home for many years and it’s just not in very good repair. You may not want to live in it yourself and prefer to sell it. If your parents have left a will, leaving the house to you, it’s a bit easier. According to CBS, approximately 55% of Americans have not left a will. Thank goodness it has no mortgage so you’re one of the lucky ones. However, no house is truly free. The taxman will come around. With no will, probate will come from the pockets of the beneficiaries now owning the home. This can take some time, from several months to two years, depending upon the cooperation of the entire family, court, and state. During that process, the beneficiaries must pay to keep up the property.
This is all a burden to family probably already emotionally distressed by the loss of a loved one. Some homes are left to one person but others to siblings who must work out how they want to divide up the belongings and individual shares of the home. Once that is all decided, they then must decide what to do with the home. Does one of them want to live in it? If it’s in poor repair, that can be expensive to prepare for comfortable residence. Another option is that you can make the investment to keep the house as a rental, bringing in a small passive income. Of course, then you’ll certainly have to restore the house to pass inspections and keep paying for its up-keep and subsequent taxes, maintain its living conditions, meeting all city codes, purchasing insurance, and keep responsibly paying tenants in the home. Who would manage that process? It’s a tremendous amount of work and risk becoming a landlord.
The option that the majority prefers in this case is to sell the home if they don’t want to keep it in the family. Of course, if the house is old and in disrepair or full of years’ worth of belongings, this is also a ton of work. Once your family is on the same page, you’ll have to come to some agreement of what to do about the house and how to handle this process. You can have an estate sale if you have the time. You can discuss everything with an attorney, quite expensively, and you can find a real estate agent to sell the property. Remember that a real estate agent will require approximately 6% of the sale price and will also require you to sign an exclusivity contract, usually of approximately 6 months. The real estate agent will definitely advise you to repair your home to make it more appealing for marketing. Since there’s no guarantee it will sell as soon as the home is listed, it may take months up to a year for the agent to market an old house and it’s unlikely to sell without thousands of dollars invested in repairs/upgrades.
Beneficiaries really do not have to go through so many struggles just to sell an unwanted inheritance. They don’t have to go through all the blood-sweat-and-tears of fixing up the home to make it look appealing to buyers, or even to haul away unwanted possessions. Many families that have inherited homes are deciding to sell more quickly to private investors, such as First Light Homes, LLC. Even if it looks like an old broken down house or one that simply wasn’t kept up inside/outside, we’ll buy your inherited property “as-is” and usually you’ll have a quick sale within 7 days to a month. By selling to an investor, you release yourself of the burden of dealing with all the expensive middle-men: attorneys, real estate agents, advertising, cleaning people, all those that you’d pay fees. We’ll take care of everything. You’ll have no neighbors making appointments just to peek at your property, no headaches of repairs, no waiting for your money — because the investors will pay you cash quickly and it’s done. Actually, when you consider what you would have paid for repairs and real estate agent fees, you probably make close to if not as much as you would have anyway – without all the fuss. Private investors like First Light Homes, LLC want to make a small profit but also want to help you in every way that they can so you both come out ahead. If you are in California, Florida, or Texas, give them a call for a quick estimate. They’ll answer any questions you may have. Even if you are elsewhere, there are investors in every state that will buy quickly, making things so much easier for you.
For any questions, call First Light Homes at (805) 497-6116 or email [email protected]
Check our website at www.firstlighthomes.com