Buying Probate Properties
If a property owner dies without a will, their property often ends up in probate. This means that the property is sold so the proceeds can go to the heirs. After an administrator has been assigned to the estate, it will be sold either independently through the administrator or, more commonly, with court confirmation. Most of these sales are listed by the Multiple Listing Service and are available for you to browse. It can also be helpful to enlist the expertise of a realtor as your search for valuable probate properties.
Probate properties are sold “as is” and estates aren’t required to disclose details about the property. For this reason, Professional Marketing International recommends you do your due diligence and have the property properly inspected.
If your offer is accepted, what happens next depends on what kind of property it is. If the deal is run through an administrator, things could wrap up fairly soon. On the flipside, deals requiring a court confirmation are far from over. In these cases, other buyers will then have the opportunity to bid on the property. A bidding war only makes things more expensive for everyone, so it’s important to avoid it if possible. To this end, you should make your initial offer substantial. If it’s high enough, it will discourage others from bidding. Of course, you don’t want to overpay on the property, so you must keep it low enough that the purchase is worthwhile for you.
The world of probate properties offers exciting opportunities for those who are tenacious enough to succeed. Many deals stretch on for several months and it is important that you are committed to the process before beginning. If you are sincerely interested in probate properties, the payoff can be substantial.
