Estate Appraisal’s – What Are They And When Should You Get One? 

A loved one passing away is never an easy situation to deal with. Going through the grieving process is not easy either. 

Do you need some help with understanding what your options are when it comes to handling and distributing your loved ones estate? If you have never gone through this process, it can be very difficult to handle especially while also dealing with the grieving process.

We can help you to better understand what an estate appraisal is and what your options are when it comes to your loved ones’ estate. 

What You Need to Know About an Estate Appraisal

First, an estate is anything that was owned by the recently departed. That includes their home and any property that they owned, but not only that. This also includes any money as well as any belongings they owned from jewelry to cars and everything inbetween.

When it comes to your loved ones estate their home and property are more often than not the most valuable assets they will pass on. So understandably, in order to make an informed decision on selling the property, keeping the property, or renting the property, you will need an estate appraisal. 

An estate appraisal works just like any other appraisal. Our home property appraiser will need to come to the estate property and look around to accurately assess the condition of the home. 

We will walk around the entire property and home checking every room, storage areas, etc. How we determine the value of the home is by looking at comps. 

A comp. is simply a comparable home in the same area. We look at comps that have recently sold in the same area and look at what those homes sold for. That is how we determine what the current market value of an estate is (or any home for that matter).

Should You Fix Up the Estate Before Selling?

A good question is if you should take the time to fix up the estate before considering selling. There are a few ways to think about this. Any property will obviously sell for more if it has recently been fixed up or updated. 

However, you have to take into account if a major renovation is something that you can afford or even if you can emotionally handle it given your recent loss. 

A good recommendation would be to look at getting an estate appraisal done on the property first and then looking at what the renovations could do as far as added value to the property. But can you afford the renovations as well as the mortgage payments while the renovations are underway? 

It might be a better idea for you to simply spend a couple weeks doing minor updates such as light fixtures, general maintenance, maybe paint, and give the home a good cleaning inside and out. 

That could really help the home to be ready to sell without spending a ton on updating the home. You might want to just sell the home as is and not worry about dealing with any maintenance or repairs. 

That is okay too. It is all dependent on what you think you can handle physically, financially, and emotionally while you are still working through your grief. 

Do You Need an Appraisal or Just a Tax Assessment? 

This is a great question. Just like when dealing with a standard home sale, an appriasal is required in order to sell the property. A tax assessment is an estimated value that has been determined by a government tax assessor. 

A tax assessment is only used to determine what the property tax will be for that property. If you are wanting to sell your loved ones estate any home buyer’s mortgage lender will require an appraisal. 

Appraisals are far more accurate to the true and current market value of a property. That is why every mortgage lender requires them. 

Should You Sell or Should You Keep the Property?

This is a very difficult choice for most families. A lot of this will be dependent on who the property is left to as well as other key factors. 

Keep the Estate

There are a couple of reasons why you might decide to keep your loved ones property. Perhaps you have a child in need of a home who would like to buy the house themselves. Or maybe you have always dreamed of living in your childhood home. 

Or maybe your loved one who passed was your partner. In which case, you would probably want to keep the home you were living in together. 

It all is really dependent on if you want to keep the home and if you are able to financially take on the responsibility. 

Sell the Estate

Selling your loved ones home is never an easy decision, especially so recently after they pass. However, you might need to. If you don’t want the financial responsibility or can not handle the financial responsibility, you need to sell the estate and all of the belongings inside of it.

Maybe it is not a question of if you can keep the home but if you want to keep the home. If you are able to keep the home from a financial aspect but are emotionally struggling with the idea of keeping the home, selling is your best option.

No matter what you end up deciding to do, going through and dealing with a loved one’s estate after they pass is not easy emotionally or financially. That is why here at R.E. Appraisal Associates, we understand how important an estate appraisal is. 

Getting your appraisal done as quickly as possible and with the utmost accuracy is what we do. We understand that everything during this time can be a struggle and tasks that would normally be easy seem impossible to manage. 

We will help make the estate appraisal process easy for you and won’t make you wait forever to get your appraisal report back. That is our guarantee. 

If you want to know more about how estate appraisals work and what we can do to help you, give us a call today at (941) 743-3700.