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Selling an Inherited or Outdated House: As-Is Offers, Cash Buyers and the Tax Rules

A ring of old iron keys hanging on a wooden wall, with a sticky note reading “70%?”.
Photo by Silas Köhler on Unsplash

"We buy houses for cash. Any condition." If a parent's house is dated, still full of furniture and three states away, a postcard like that can sound like relief. Cash investors commonly work from a formula that lands somewhere around 50% to 70% of what the house would bring once it's fixed up. Before anyone signs, heirs also need a second number on paper, and it's tied to one specific day.

Run the ten-minute cash offer check

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By Ray Castellano · Updated Sep 29, 2026 · Reviewed against IRS (Form 8949 instructions, Topic 409, estate tax guidance), Medicaid.gov, Texas Department of Insurance, Clever Real Estate commission survey, HomeLight, Bankrate

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Take a house worth $300,000 once it's fixed up. The gap between a quick cash offer and a regular sale on that house can easily top $50,000. For some families that's a fair trade for speed and no repairs. For plenty of others, it's money they didn't know they were leaving on the table.

The tax side has its own stakes. What your parents paid decades ago usually isn't the figure that counts for an heir, and the one that does has to be documented. Without it, you may end up arguing with the IRS years later.

See the order that works for most families

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Before anyone can sign a contract

For heirs, the sale price is only half the picture. Four things about the house itself can hold up a sale, whoever the buyer turns out to be.

  1. Who can sign. A will doesn't, on its own, give you the power to sell. In most cases a probate court has to appoint an executor or administrator, and the title company will want that paperwork before closing.
  2. Whether probate applies at all. Did your parent put the house in a living trust? Then it can skip probate, and the same goes for a house with a surviving joint owner or a transfer-on-death deed. It's a state-by-state thing, which is why a short talk with a probate attorney where the house sits is usually money well spent.
  3. What's owed against it. Mortgages, home equity lines, tax liens, court judgments: a preliminary title search ordered early shows all of them, and every one has to be cleared at closing.
  4. Insurance on an empty house. This one surprises people, because once a house has been empty for 30 or 60 days, many homeowners policies cover less. A quick call to the insurer, letting them know nobody lives there now, will tell you whether you need a vacant-home policy until closing.

Those checks get the house ready to sell. The article covers what comes after: how a cash offer is built, what it nets next to a listing, and the value the IRS will expect you to prove.

See the tax rule for inherited houses

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