The real estate market is bonkers right now, we are seeing the start of this year similar to the start of last year. Here we are in April 2023 and finding a good listing is still challenging however getting that property under contract over the other buyers can be a bigger challenge.

My name is John Herman of PropertyUp and I work with families going through Probate and also sell homes in the North West Suburbs of Chicago. To give you an example of the current market, I have been purchasing homes that need work and fixing them up, and finally selling them, I finished up 2 recently. I put them on the market for sale and both sold quickly with multiple offers. Even with the current higher interest rates we are seeing multiple offers with appraisal gap addendums. Now An appraisal gap addendum is a guarantee the buyer with pay the difference between what they offered for the home and what it appraises for. Meaning buyers will need to bring their Down payment to the closing along with the difference between the appraisal and the purchase price if there is one, so it’s good to protect yourself and give yourself a cap on these documents.

My probate tip# If and when you become an executor of an estate you become completely and financially responsible for the person who passed away, its like you are now in their shoes, and if there is a home in the estate you need to gain access to the property immediately and change out the locks asap. This will stop other heirs from taking items before the process starts and stop any other people who watch the obituaries for homes from removing items as well. So change out those locks and make sure all the windows are locked as well. If you want to learn more about probate I have links to my probate series below.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLc2VDkL7xINMGuyU8QmgiKNkUkO0W8TjN

My name is John Herman of PropertyUp, please make it a great day.