More Inherited-Home Recipients Prefer to Sell
Faced with the cost of property insurance, taxes and utilities, more children inheriting parents’ homes are deciding it’s best to sell rather than move in.
NEW YORK – Higher home prices and mortgage rates – plus the increasing costs for renovations, property taxes and utilities – are making it harder for adult children to hold onto inherited family property.
Plus the cash can be more appealing than the real estate. If inheritors can unload a house in a hot location for a high price, the home sale proceeds can help secure their finances and fund goals such as retirement, financial advisers say.
More than three-quarters of parents plan to leave a home to their children when they die, according to a 2023 Charles Schwab survey – and almost 70% of those who expect to inherit a home from their parents plan to sell it, the survey found.
The higher cost to insure coastal homes in the Southeast is pushing more heirs in the area to sell, according to Realtors. Inflation has also made repairs and upkeep on older properties more expensive, leading some to favor newer properties that may be cheaper to maintain and insure.
Aaron Buchbinder, a real estate agent in Boca Raton, Fla., is working with three brothers who inherited their grandmother’s condominium this year in Boca Raton, and none of them live in Florida. They discussed keeping it and renting it out, but none of them wanted to keep it long term and preferred to sell because of the carrying cost of the homeowners association fees and taxes, says Buchbinder.
Source: Wall Street Journal (05/31/23) Dagher, Veronica
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