How do you sell a property in Michigan while you are living in another state? What does it take to successfully sell a home in Michigan while living in a state like California, New York, Ohio, Texas, or Florida?
When people find themselves in this situation, it’s easy for a lot of negative emotions to come about.
Anxiety.
Fear.
Confusion.
Stress.
Few of us have to deal with a situation like this. Selling a home can be stressful as it is, and trying to do it in another state is even more stressful and difficult.
While few people will go through a situation like this, at the Dolinski Group we frequently have clients who need to sell a home in Michigan even though they are in another state — an inherited home is a perfect example.
Luckily for you, that has given us a keen insight into how you can sell a home in Michigan even though you are an out of state owner. We’re going to share with you some tips for selling a home out of state.
Real quick…
… Even though this article is talking about how to sell a home in Michigan as an out state owner, the article can be applied to Michiganders, too.
Many of the problems and stressors that an out of state owner deals with are experienced by people who live a decent distance from the home they need to sell. For example, a person living in Howell, Michigan who needs to sell a home in Allen Park, Michigan will experience many of the problems as an out of state owner.
A person living in Trenton, Michigan may need to sell a home in Grand Rapids or Lansing.
Of course, the degree of control and difficulty will be different than an out of state owner. They will experience many of the same problems though.
Second, the tips I’m going to share will be written with a frame of reference based on the clients that we often help.
Many of the homes that the Dolinski Group has sold or purchased through our “as-is” cash program for out of state owners relate to these reasons:
- Inherited A House: there are several ways our clients come to inherit a home in Michigan. For example, a home may have been transferred through a quit claim deed. Either way, these clients weren’t expecting to have a home in another state and need to sell it.
- Moving Parents Into Assisted Living: You’ve come to a point where you need to move a parent (or both) into an assisted living center. As a part of paying for assisted living or planning for finances, you need to help your aging parents sell their home.
- Probate: This is a formal and legal process where real estate is involved in a decedent’s estate. Sometimes the named executor or estate representative is a child that lives out of state.
- Conservatorships: This, too, is a legal process where someone has been granted, by the courts, to be the representative of an adult’s estate. It’s common for children to be appointed over their parents in cases like Dementia or Alzheimer’s. It’s also the process Brittany Spears’s dad used to control her estate and money.
These tips can still apply to you if, for example, you relocated to Texas for work and moved before you could sell your home in Michigan.
Finding A Team of Experts
Your first step to successfully selling your home out of state is to find and hire an all-star team.
To do that, you’re going to need to assess the individuals that need to be involved in the transaction. From attorneys, to real estate agents, to family members, to title companies, and more.
A good real estate agent can often help you align the needed parties. For example, they can often refer a cleaning service to you or a junk removal company. Sometimes you can defer to the agent’s network when looking to hire someone.
We may be biased, but we believe finding the right real estate agent is going to make the biggest difference and is arguably the most important person to selling a home out of state.
If you’ve inherited a home that needs selling, then you’re going to have significantly more parties involved in the transaction than your average out of state seller.
It’s likely you will need:
- A Real Estate Agent: ideally with experience in dealing with inherited homes, probate, conservatorships or similar situations.
- An Attorney: should be licensed to practice law in the state of Michigan and be familiar with family and estate law.
- Junk Removal and/or Estate Sale Company: No doubt you will have items that need to be sold or disposed of. Both an estate sale company or junk removal company can help.
- Contractors: This is a catch all category for everything from general repairs to lawn care.
Excel At Team Communication
It’s important to make sure that the team of experts you are hiring all know each other and have lines of communication established.
This can minimize the back-and-forth, on your part, during the sale. Team members can communicate to each other to get the necessary paperwork and documents needed throughout the process.
For example, a probate real estate agent can ensure that your lawyer has the accepted purchase agreement. Your real estate agent can make sure to obtain a tax ID number for the estate from your lawyer or accountant.
If your team members are communicating together, you can avoid being the middleman.
From our experience, your real estate agent will often become the primary point of contact and the mediator for many conversations.
It’s possible for your attorney to become your primary point of contact, but we’ve found, at times, this can slow down the process. Plus, this can cause your billable hours to really add up.
The Case For a Good Real Estate Agent
I briefly highlighted why a good real estate agent matters. I’m going to go a bit further and deeper to stress the importance of finding and hiring a good real estate agent.
A home is typically going to be a significant asset class in the average decedent’s estate, even if that property is being leveraged (i.e. a mortgage). We will discuss that issue in a second.
Unlike other investment classes, such as retirement accounts or stocks, there are a lot of rules, regulations and procedures that an heir or representative must follow when selling a home that has been inherited or is required to go through probate.
Do you really want to leave such an important asset class to chance? Probably not. For that reason, it’s worth hiring a good real estate agent.
A good real estate agent will help you maximize the proceeds from the sale — leaving more money for distribution, paying of debts, etc.
Second, what happens if a home you inherited is leveraged? Every so often we run across homes that have a reverse mortgage on them or carry a balance on the home.
A good real estate agent is going to be able to help you navigate some of these issues. They can point you to the required resources and help you determine how to address these issues.
When there is a mortgage balance, it is important to sell the house for more than the mortgage balance. Otherwise, you may have to pursue an alternative solution like a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure.
Lastly, a good real estate agent can help with securing the property, assessing the condition, and keeping tabs on the property. All important elements if you are hundreds or thousands of miles away from the property you need to sell.
At the Dolinski Group, we have a separate service, Vacant Home Inspection Check Up, that allows us to keep an eye on the home for a seller. For example, we can discover problems before they become major issues.
On one occasion, we found that a condenser tube from the AC fell out of the laundry tub and was draining onto the floor. If the tube had been left to drain onto the floor, it could have resulted in mold and ruined the flooring. Easily a cost of a few thousand dollars.
Finding a Real Estate Agent
First, let’s start by clarifying what I mean by a “good real estate agent”. Without the clarification, you may go down the wrong path finding a real estate agent.
When I say “good”, I am talking about the right agent for the job.
The reality is that the city or area where your property is located has a TON of “qualified” real estate agents to choose from. By qualified, I mean they have their license and some experience.
When hiring someone to handle an out-of-state sale, especially for a home that has been inherited and likely involves some legal matters and family members, you need to be particular about the real estate agent you are hiring.
That means you are looking for an agent with experience and whose services are set up to deliver on your particular situation. Some key areas that we find important are:
- Experience
- Pricing Strategy Advisor Certified
- Good With Technology
Let’s dive into each of these a bit further.
Experience: Does It Matter?
Look for an agent with experience that is similar to your scenario.
So, if you inherited a home through a quitclaim deed and live in Michigan but across the other side of the state, then look for a real estate agent that has experience in dealing with inherited homes in Michigan. You can look for Michigan probate real estate agents, Michigan conservatorship real estate agents, or similar search terms.
You could say that it is a case of quality over quantity. The quality of the experience (dealing with similar situations) over the quantity of experience.
Don’t make the common mistake I often see: assuming the real estate agent with the highest reviews or most sales in an area.
There is a chance that they could be the best real estate agent for the job, but it’s often not the case.
The Dolinski Group has been a highly rated and recommended company and some of our real estate agents rank at the top of popular search sites like Realtor.com. That’s because of our service and specialization in dealing with inherited homes, homes in probate, or homes being sold in a trust or conservatorship.
We would be the exception to the rule that the top rated or recommended real estate agent is the most qualified for the job.
The right experience matters more than the amount of experience.
Pricing Strategy Advisor Certified
A real estate agent that is certified as a Pricing Strategy Advisor (PSA) can increase the odds of a successful outcome when you are looking to sell your property.
We believe this is even more true if you are in a situation that is a deviation from the average and traditional home seller.
For example, people that inherited a home, a property that is in probate, transferred through a trust, or you became the conservator of your parent’s estate.
A PSA real estate agent leads to a more successful outcome due to their experience, skills, and training to more accurately determine the market value of a home, regardless of the condition.
The average agent typically doesn’t have this knowledge or experience. They could have it, but the pricing strategy advisor certification verifies a realtor has these skills.
Accurate pricing tends to lead to less time on the market, fewer surprises, and a better overall offer price.
The PSA real estate agent will help you maximize the value of your home, while selling it in the best timeframe, with the least surprises. Don’t settle for average. Look for a real estate agent that is a Pricing Strategy Advisor.
Tech-Friendly Agent
Since you’re going to be far from the home you’re selling, you need to make sure that the agent you work with is good with technology.
The listing agent should be experienced in dealing with clients remotely. Specifically, they need to be able to handle the paperwork using technology without being inconvenient.
For example, in our company, we use transaction software that allows home sellers to sign all of the paperwork using a simple signing platform. No need to download all of the documents, print them, sign them and somehow fax or scan them back to us.
Our software allows us to go from listing to close. A convenience for our customers.
Recently we worked with a client living in Ohio who needed to sell a home in Grand Ledge. We went over the listing agreement with him using Zoom and everything was signed using the software platform.
We were able to list the house without him even stepping foot in Michigan.
Choosing an experienced real estate agent will make all the difference when you are selling out of state. It can be time-consuming and difficult to find a real estate agent that suits your needs. Our company, the Dolinski Group, is a great real estate agency to use if you’re selling a home out of state that you have inherited through some vehicle.
Determine The Repairs You Will Do
Is it necessary to fix your home up before selling? Maybe.
It depends what your goals are, your resources, and capabilities.
No doubt… a home that is fixed and repaired will sell for more than a home that is outdated or in less-than-deal condition.
That doesn’t automatically mean that making repairs or updates is the right choice for you.
To determine what repairs may be needed, you should ask yourself a few questions.
- Goals: how much are you hoping to sell the home for? What are you looking to net profit from the home?
- Resources: do you have the money to fix the home? Do you have the resources to manage projects, like contractors?
- Capabilities: are you allowed to fix the home? In some situations, like probate, you may need court approval before you can fix the home.
Each situation and scenario will call for a different solution. For some homes, it may be worth more to sell the home as-is to a cash investor who will close in two weeks. In other cases, it may be worth putting forth the effort to repair and fix the home.
In our opinion, for most out of state sellers dealing with an inherited home, it’s often better to sell the home as-is to a cash investor or sell the home through the traditional market as-is. This mitigates hurdles, stress, and risk on your end.
An inherited home tends to be an outdated home so updating the home can create a lot of risk on your end.
Will you be able to get a return on the money that you put in updating the home? It comes down to a number’s game. A good real estate agent can help you run through the different scenarios and help you evaluate which decision might be right for you.
Give Up Control
The last step to successfully selling your home out of state is to relinquish control. I know, easier said than done.
If you put a good team in place, you should be able to sit back and let them handle the sale and the process.
Home sellers find this difficult to do when communication is less than stellar. It’s important to make sure you hire a team of experts that are excellent at communicating. Again, this is typically going to be your real estate agent.
When you live so far, there isn’t much else you can do other than giving up control. It must be in the hands of the team of experts you hired and put into place.
Conclusion
Are you selling a Michigan home out of state? We may be able to help you.
We help clients who have inherited a home in Michigan through various legal vehicles and need to sell it. Example situations are: probate, conservatorships, mom moving to a nursing home, or a home transferred from a parent through a quit claim deed.
We can help with probate real estate in cities like Lansing, Riverview, Trenton, East Lansing, and more. We can help you sell an inherited home or mom’s home in cities like Woodhaven, Wyandotte, and Okemos.
Whether you live in California, Ohio, New York, or some other state, we can help you sell your Michigan property. Get in touch with us today.
