Selling an Inherited Home Comes Down to Time Versus Money

An inherited house arrives with decisions its new owners didn’t plan for: whether to fix it up, list it, or take a cash offer, and how much effort any of those paths is worth. Each option comes down to a tradeoff between the time a sale takes and the money it brings in. In greater Philadelphia, a market that has slowed from its pandemic pace now charges more for getting that tradeoff wrong.

Kevin Toll, co-owner of The Toll Group at TTG Real Estate, works through these decisions with executors, trustees, and long-time owners across the region. He began his career as a CPA, and he approaches each choice by asking what the seller ultimately keeps. “At the end of the day, they’re looking at what they walk away with,” he says.

A Less Forgiving Market

The tradeoff carries more weight now because the market has stopped covering for mistakes in price or condition. In 2020, Toll says, homes across the region typically sold quickly and above value, and buyers routinely waived inspections. Today inspections are back, buyers tour a home a second or third time before deciding, and some parts of the market are approaching a six-month supply of inventory. Toll describes the change as a return to a more normal market, one in which buyers have time to research, ask questions, and compare.

Interest rates set much of that pace. With mortgage rates around 7 to 7.5 percent, up from roughly 3 percent a few years ago, buyers weigh each purchase more carefully, and activity responds quickly to small moves. When rates dipped into the sixes earlier this year, Toll says, homes sold faster and sellers likely got more; when rates rose again, the market slowed. “We can’t predict the rates. We don’t know what’s going to go on next year,” he says.

Conditions also vary sharply within a region that spans Philadelphia and Delaware, Chester, Montgomery, and Bucks counties, with housing that ranges from century-old stone colonials to new construction. “You can’t compare a West Chester market to a Pottstown market or a Main Line to the city market,” Toll says. For an estate seller, a regional headline says little about what a particular house will bring.

Where Expectations Meet Comps

The slower market has opened a gap between what sellers of inherited homes expect and what buyers will pay. The misconception Toll encounters most often is straightforward: sellers assume the property will sell quickly and for more than the market supports. In his view, many haven’t adjusted for how much economic and market conditions have shifted, so their expectations remain tied to a pace and price level that no longer apply. Some tension over price is a constant. What has changed is that the market no longer closes the gap on its own, so his team closes it before listing by walking sellers through comparable sales, days on market, and current activity.

Age and inheritance alone don’t determine how a house will sell. “Older homes don’t mean that they’re not taken care of,” Toll says. Some long-held homes were meticulously maintained and sell quickly, while others are outdated or neglected and need a complete remodel. In Toll’s view, condition and location set the timeline, not the home’s age or how it changed hands. His team walks through every property before advising a seller, checking whether the roof leaks and what level of work the house needs, because the realistic options depend on those answers.

When a property is hard to price because it needs extensive work, has tenants, or has sat vacant, Toll doesn’t rely on a single opinion. He calls four or five agents on his team for their read on the number, looks at rents alongside sales comparables, and adjusts for condition.

Buying a House That Needs Work

Condition also determines who shows up to buy, and those buyers don’t value a property the same way. A house that needs work draws three groups, according to Toll: investor-flippers who renovate and relist, landlords who make lighter updates and rent the home out, and owner-occupants who plan to remake the house themselves. The difference matters for sellers because investors often make cash offers off-market, before a house is ever listed, and flippers have to leave room for a return. “Investors make lower offers because they’re trying to build in their profit to flip the home,” Toll says. A buyer who intends to live in the house isn’t pricing in a margin. That is why Toll steers sellers who want to maximize proceeds toward the open market, listing the home publicly so owner-occupants can compete for it, rather than accepting an investor’s off-market cash offer.

Owner-occupants are a growing part of that pool. Toll says buyers have become more selective as rates climbed, picking and choosing which work they are willing to take on, and more of them now see a dated house they can make their own as a better use of their money. Their evaluation is practical: how much of the house they can live with as it stands, and which major repairs would have to be handled right away.

Calculating the Walk-Away Number

Knowing who will buy turns the seller’s choice into a calculation of what each path is worth after accounting for time. Toll’s team has the listing-versus-cash conversation with sellers two or three times a day, and it usually starts with a question about the seller’s goal. “If they’re trying to make more profit on their house, the best route is typically to list it on the market and bring the open market to the house,” he says. Speed has a price, and some sellers are willing to pay it. “There’s some people that will want to sell quicker, and that time means they make a little bit less, but they’re fine with that.” For those sellers, a guaranteed sale within about 30 days is worth a lower price because their time and effort matter more to them than the difference.

Whether to put money into the house before selling is the harder question, and Toll treats it case by case. Some sellers have the time, the funds, and the contractor connections to renovate and capture top dollar; others don’t. Sometimes the work is limited to a cleanout, new carpet, and paint. At the other extreme, a 6,000-square-foot home might need $150,000 to $300,000 to modernize, an investment that may not be worth the seller’s time or money. Time is part of that cost as well: a seller facing a project that could take six months may reasonably conclude that the delay outweighs the gain.

Selling From a Distance

For many heirs, the time side of the equation has less to do with the market than with logistics. The first question in an estate sale is who has the authority to decide, usually the executor or executrix, and Toll’s team works with that person to establish the family’s goal before recommending a path. When the decision-makers live across the country, the agent’s role expands. “You’re the eyes and ears for them,” Toll says.

The house’s contents are a frequent complication. Some estates sell a home with belongings still inside, and in that case the offer has to state in writing that the buyer accepts the house as it is and will clear it out. Other families want to handle the contents themselves: Toll describes clients who flew back and forth from California about 20 times to clear out a house, taking home what they wanted to keep. Another family, selling in Glen Mills, asked his team to help organize donations to charities. Throughout, Toll says, the family sets the course. “We don’t make decisions for them. The consumer always does.”

Taking the Time Up Front

What ties these decisions together is the time Toll spends with clients before anything is listed, and buyers are now pushing the market in the same direction. Buyers arrive having researched homes online and with AI tools, and they ask more questions and take longer to decide. “The consumers are coming in very educated,” Toll says. That research has made conversations with agents longer rather than shorter, because buyers still want to talk through what they’ve found with a person. His team schedules an hour or two when a decision calls for it, for instance to go through an inspection report in detail.

“I always taught my team to educate first before doing anything,” Toll says. His advice to buyers and sellers alike is to act on their own circumstances rather than wait for a market no one can predict. “It’s always time to buy, it’s always time to sell,” he says. “Buy the house that you can afford today and sell the house that you need to move on from today.”

About the Expert: Kevin Toll is co-owner of The Toll Group at TTG Real Estate, covering the greater Philadelphia area.