My father in law passed away in November. We found out he had no will in place. With the help of a good attorney they helped my husband set up an estate. Our attorney has been walking him through everything. While there was a lot to deal with in regard to the estate, probably the biggest piece is selling the house.
We did an estate auction and tried to sell the house through the auctioneer. We were selling it “as is” We had an interested buyer but that person was trying to use a VA loan. The VA doesn’t grant loans for houses “as is” we learned. So that fell through.
We hired someone to take the rest of the stuff away that was left after the auction. We then hired a professional cleaning service to clean the inside of the house. It was then ready to be put on the market by a realtor this time. We chose to use Remax. We had a lot of interest in the house and 2 good offers within the first 2 days of listing. Fun fact, our realtor told us that Remax has there own cleaning service that we could use for an additional cost so that’s who we ended up using. They did a great job.
In our area houses are cheap, especially in comparison to many areas. Taxes are low too. Our school district is one of the best in our area. So had all kinds of offers while trying to get it ready for market. One person told use they were to get a settlement at the end of the month and wanted to buy the house and the truck. Another person was trying to rebuild their life after some life circumstance and was trying to find bad credit loans
I have the Zillow app on my phone. It was encouraging to see all the views and saves on the house. We are so ready to finalize everything with this estate and move on. If I’m being honest, I have the Zillow app on my phone all the time. I’m always curious as to what different house in my area look like on the inside. I also have dream homes saved on the beach, you know, just in case. Please tell me I’m not the only one who does this!
It made us quickly realize that hiring professionals through the whole process was worth every dollar. From our attorney walking us through the process, to the auctioneer handling the selling of his truck and a number of things from the house, the cleaning service for making it look great and move-in ready, to the realtor being on top of things, I wouldn’t want to do it any other way. Plus a lot of the fees were able to be deducted from the estate account because it all dealt with the estate.
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My boyfriend really needs to do a will. We’ve been easing into the conversation but it’s not an easy one to have but it’s so, so necessary.