Inherited A House In Florida And You Don’t Live Here?

The house is in Tampa. You’re in Ohio, or New Jersey, or somewhere four flights from here.

You’ve got a key you’ve never used, a sibling with opinions, and an attorney telling you nothing moves until the court says so. Somewhere underneath all of that is a house nobody has stood inside in months.

I’m Mike Youngblood. I buy houses across Tampa Bay and I’ve been doing it since 2015 — more than a thousand of them, walked personally. I’m also a licensed Florida agent, SL3213954, under TMWRK Brokerage LLC. Most cash buyers aren’t licensed.

This page isn’t about selling me the house. It’s about the part nobody’s handling right now, which is the house itself.

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The court isn’t your problem. The house is.

Your attorney has the legal side. That part has a professional on it.

The house has nobody.

In most of the probate cases I see, nobody in the family lives near it. Different city, different state, sometimes a different country. And you’re being asked to make decisions about an asset you can’t see.

Is anybody living in it? Is the roof okay? Is the power still on? Is there thirty years of belongings in there? What’s it worth — not what Zillow says, what it’s actually worth in the shape it’s in today?

You can’t answer one of those from out of state. And you can’t make a good decision until somebody does.

So that’s what I do. I go be your eyes on it.

What I’ll actually do

Get the door open

The house is locked and nobody has a working key. I’ll send my locksmith. You get his price, not the eleven-at-night emergency price you’d land on searching from out of state.

Walk it and photograph everything

Every room. The roof line, the electrical panel, under the sinks, the back bedroom ceiling. Then I send you all of it, photos and video, so your whole family is looking at the same house at the same time from wherever everybody is.

That one step ends most of the arguing. It’s hard to disagree about a house when everyone can finally see it.

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Get the yard cut — do this one first

Before anything else on this list. An empty house with grass to the windowsill gets noticed, and code enforcement can start fining daily. A small problem turns into a real one while nobody’s watching it.

I’ve got landscapers who can be out there this week.

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Deal with what’s inside

If there’s value in the house, I work with an estate sale company that’s been doing this a long time. They inventory it, price it, run the sale, and work on consignment. You can be as involved or as uninvolved as you want.

If there’s nothing worth selling, a different crew will empty the place, usually inside a day.

And if you end up selling it to me, you don’t have to do either one. Take the photo albums and leave the rest.

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Get real numbers on repairs

Roof, plumbing, electrical, AC. If you need to know what something actually costs to fix, you get my vendors at my pricing. You don’t have to work out who’s legitimate from 1,200 miles away.

Find out what it’s worth

I’ll underwrite it and tell you what it’s worth in the condition it’s actually in, not a guess off a website. I’ve been buying and selling in these neighborhoods since 2015. I know what the repairs run and what the finished house sells for.

What this costs you

Me walking the house, the photos, the video, the valuation — that’s free. No fee, nothing to sign, no obligation to sell me anything.

The locksmith, the landscaper, the clean-out crew, the vendors — those are real companies doing real work and they get paid. You pay them directly, at the price I pay. Nothing runs through me. I don’t take a cut and I don’t mark anything up.

So why would I do the free part?

Because some of the time, at the end of it, you decide to sell and I’m the one who buys it. That’s the business. I’m not going to pretend otherwise.

The rest of the time you keep it, or you list it, and I spent an afternoon in a house and made nothing. I’ve made that trade plenty of times. I’d rather be the person you call than the one whose postcard you threw out.

Three things I can’t do

I can’t do anything official with the house until somebody has actually been appointed personal representative and has letters from the court. Before that, nobody has the authority to sell. More on that here: Can I sell a house that’s in probate?

I can’t speed up the court. If your case has to run its course, it runs its course, and I’ll wait.

And I won’t tell you whether to open probate, which kind, or who should serve. That’s your attorney’s call, not mine.

Once you know what’s there, it comes down to three roads

Keep it. If the house is sound and the family’s on the same page, it might be a rental. I’ll pull the comparable rents so you can run the real math — rent, minus taxes, insurance, management, and whatever it needs to be rentable. Sometimes that number is worth it.

Sell it on the open market. If the house is in good shape — roof’s fine, systems work, it would pass an inspection — list it. You’ll net more than I’d pay you, even after commission. I’ll tell you when that’s what I’m looking at. That’s not me being noble, it’s just true.

Sell it as-is. If it needs a roof, an AC, flooring, and it’s still full of things nobody has moved, there isn’t a retail buyer for that house. Not at a lower price — at all. It won’t pass a lender’s inspection. That’s where a cash offer makes sense. My number is below retail, and what you’re buying with the difference is not fixing any of it, not cleaning any of it, and not waiting six months to find out whether it worked.

One question to ask your probate attorney

Ask whether they bill flat fee or hourly before you hire them. Some will do it either way.

That single question will tell you more about what this is going to cost you than anything else you ask, and most people don’t think to ask it until the bill shows up.

This is general information about how this usually works in Florida, not legal advice. Every estate is its own thing — talk to an attorney about yours.

Send me the address and I’ll tell you what I find

You don’t have to decide anything to start. Text me the address and I’ll go look at it.

Call or text Mike: 813-200-7665
A+ Home Buyers · TMWRK Brokerage LLC
aplushomebuyer.com