All Forum Posts by: Daniel Miller

Just to clarify, I didn't *ask* for 4.5% from anyone, I just asked what their fees are.  The one person who said she charges 4.5%, also is the one who doesn't typically stage the house, or will typically do 'partial staging', using paintings and appliances that she owns... it sounded a little odd to me, but she is very experienced, and has sold many properties in the past year... mind you, I don't know what prices she got...

Wow, that last guy gave me a headache; sounded like a used-car salesman - fast talking, really into the "I'm different from other realtors because I focus on getting the best price possible for your house, so you'll be super impressed with me!!"... gack... he *has* been in business for a long time, but still... 

Okay, that was interesting, and only a little nerve-wracking... I talked to three agents today, with another pending... they all sounded pretty credible, all very experienced... the third was interesting, though... she charges 4.5% vs 6% for the others...

However, she does not typically do staging ???  I thought that was a standard process for selling a house??  she maintained that in this super-heated market, that isn't necessary... but every house listing that I've looked at recently (which is a fair number of them) has had images showing a house that looks ready to live in...  Does this sound reasonable to folks here??  That was the only red flag that I picked up, in the various conversations today...

I've been renting out a house in San Jose, CA for many years now.  The current tenant is moving out soon, and I've decided to sell the house, rather than continue to rent it.  The house is just so far away, I really don't want to deal with driving all the way there to keep dealing with issues.

Originally, I had expected the tenant to buy the house, and we had discussed it at some length, but they've ended up choosing to buy a house in Georgia instead.  I suspect that the prices for housing in this valley were too ridiculous for them...

Anyway, I would appreciate any advice on how to choose a reliable agent to work with on this process...
Thank you once again for your insights!

Just for some background for all of you here, regarding the reliability of these tenants, as well as my goals for selling the property...

They have lived there for 5 years already; they are from Germany, where they themselves own several properties that they rent out, so they understand the value of a property, and maintaining it.  They *love* the house!!

Anyway, last year when I visited the house to deal with a fence repair issue, I chatted with them for awhile about things, and Silke (the wife in the family) was talking about all their plans, the older daughter is graduating from high school and is going to community college for a couple of years, then planning to go to U.C. Davis (I don't recall what field); the younger daughter is still in high school, but plans to go to college as well.  I asked "so you're planning to stay here for a *long* time, eh??" to which she replied "Oh yes, we love this house, the girls don't ever want to go elsewhere!!"...

Wow... ever since my dad passed away and I inherited the house, my plan had been to let these folks stay as long as they wanted; we retired last year and paid off *our* mortgage, so the $3300/month that they are paying for this house is *easily* paying our bills now; we aren't even collecting social security yet (waiting for 70).  Anyway, once they moved out someday, I was going to sell the house at that point.  It is 30 miles from my home, typically with nasty traffic both ways, and I don't really want to deal with it any more.

But that conversation got me thinking... if they're going to stay there for many years anyway, why not let *them* buy it, and stop dumping money into rent.  So I made that proposal to them; I emphasized that it's *just* a proposal, if they want to keep renting, that's fine with me.  Of course, I *know* what he earns, from when they first applied!! They can *definitely* afford it!!

So the whole deal is very low pressure; I'm not intending at this point to consider anyone else to sell to.  And I have *no* need to squeeze every last dollar out of the house; it is likely to appraise at roughly $1.5million, and it will all be "found" money for me...

That doesn't change the other facts, though; I still don't know anything about how to do everything legally, so I will need other advice, as you have all recommended...

The problem that I'll have estimating price on this house, is that it is *far* larger than other houses in this area; I think I mentioned this previously; when I had the appraiser provide an assessment for me, in October 2018, he wasn't able to find comparable properties anywhere in the area; he ended up using properties in other areas of the city for comparison.  Also, this house has solar, and has low-maintenance yards (no lawns), both of which probably increase the property value to some extent, and are not common in the area.

I think that if I decide not to go with an agent, it may behoove me to get a new, current appraisal; that will be a pretty un-arguable price to work from.

could y'all comment on hiring an agent, vs only retaining a title company??  What *won't* the title company do, that the agent will??

So I *do* want to go through a title company, it sounds like?  That was one thing I wondered about... are they the ones who put together the infinite stack of papers that the buyer always needs to wade through??

As for price, I'm leaning toward going with the Zillow price; when my dad passed away in 2018 and I inherited the house, I paid a licensed auditor to given me a price on the house at that time (which I used for depreciation on the rental); the Zillow price was almost exactly the same, so I'm feeling like I can make the same assumption now... ???  Another option is that I could just hire the auditor again and get a new estimate; he charged $400 in 2018, probably won't be hugely different now; advantage there is there's no argument about the number, and $400 against the roughly $1.5million home price is pretty inconsequential.

Estimating rent for that house was rather difficult, because it is a *very* large house for the neighborhood, and had solar power as well, so there were very few comparable properties to compare against; the auditor also had trouble with this back in 2018, he ended up comparing with comparable-sized houses in *much* higher value neighborhoods such as Los Gatos (our house is in San Jose, 1 mile south of Santana Row, and is 1900 sqft, plus 600 sqft detached garage).

This *may* be off-topic here, it certainly isn't what people ask about on this forum!!  Feel free to move it if there is a more-appropriate group for it.

I'm in California, and I've been renting dad's house out to this family for over 5 years now; they are wonderful tenants... they have two daughters who are in high school, one is getting ready to enter college, so they are planning to stay there for many more years, as they love the house. 

My dad passed away in 2018, so I am now full owner of the house.  I've decided to just sell the house to them, get out of the landlord business and just invest the money, taking a portion out monthly to cover our expenses until we hit 70 and start collecting social security (assuming that it still exists by then).  They've expressed much interest in buying the house, since I brought the topic up.

However, I have *no* idea what I need to do, to do sell a house, I've never done this before!!  Do y'all have a guide to this process?  If not, can you provide some guidance?  I'm hoping to avoid doing the full broker route, since they take several percent off the top.  I already know I have clear ownership of the property (I certainly know its history for the past 50 years), and I know their finances inside and out...

Any advice would be very welcome here!!

Aye, thank you all; I will do that, early next year.

I'm a little confused about the recommendations to talk to two different people (attorney and CPA); is there a division between the questions that I would ask each??  If so, I don't know what they are...  Should I start with tax CPA, and bring in an attorney afterwards if I still have questions afterwards??

And BTW, what would be the consequences, if any, if I just disregarded all this and filed the normal 1040 with 'person is deceased' checked, like I did when mother died?

He died in Oct, so we're only talking two months of overlap.

and yes, the trust specified disperse all assets upon death, which I have already done.  
(I am both successor trustee and sole beneficiary)