Someone you love died. And now there's a house.
Maybe they left it directly to you. Maybe it got left to "the kids." Maybe there's no will at all and everyone's walking on eggshells trying to be polite about it. Doesn't matter which version — you're sitting in grief, and somebody's already asked you "so what are you going to do with the house?"
I'm going to tell you the five things you actually need to do in the first 30 days. And the first one is going to surprise you.
I'm going to say this up front: I write this as someone who's been in the room with a lot of families going through this. Some of them inherited $400K in equity and lost most of it to delay, bad advice, or a sibling move. Others held it together and came out the other side with the legacy intact. The difference wasn't luck. It was the first 30 days.
1. Do nothing dramatic for the first 72 hours.
I know. The pressure is on. Somebody in the family is already asking. Your inbox is filling up with sympathy cards and simultaneously with mortgage statements, utility bills, tax reminders.
Breathe. Don't sign anything. Don't list anything. Don't call a wholesaler back. Don't take the cash offer somebody slid under the door.
The house isn't going anywhere in 72 hours. Scammers know grieving heirs are soft targets, and the aggressive "we buy ugly houses" people know it too. Give yourself three days before you make a single permanent decision.
2. Find the paperwork.
This is the boring step everybody skips, and then regrets.
What you're looking for:
The will or trust (usually with the attorney who drafted it, or in a home safe)
The deed (you can pull this from the county recorder's office if you can't find a copy)
The mortgage statement (so you know what's owed, if anything)
Any HELOC or second-position loans
Property tax records (are there back taxes?)
Insurance (homeowner's policy — this needs to stay active)
Any existing lease if the property is rented
You don't need to understand all of it yet. You just need to know where it is. Put it in one folder. Physical or digital. One folder.
If there's no will, the property enters probate, which is a court process that determines who inherits what. That's where a good probate attorney becomes non-optional. Which brings us to —
3. Get a probate attorney before you get a realtor.
I'm a realtor. I'm telling you to call an attorney first.
Here's why: until the court determines you have legal authority to sell, rent, or lease the property, you can't actually do any of those things. You can walk into agreements you can't legally execute. You can sign contracts that get voided. You can get sued by a sibling who had equal claim and wasn't consulted.
A probate attorney costs money (usually $2K–$7K for a standard estate), but they save you from losing six figures to a disputed sale. If you don't know a good one in DC, Maryland, or Virginia, I'll connect you to one I trust. It's part of what we do.
4. Get a real valuation. Not Zillow.
Zillow's Zestimate is a toy. It's pulled from public comps and county records that can be years behind, and it doesn't know anything about the inside of your inherited house.
What you want instead:
A formal appraisal (~$500, done by a licensed appraiser) — this is what you'll need for the estate anyway, for tax purposes
A broker's price opinion (BPO) from a realtor who knows the actual neighborhood
A comp pack showing what similar homes have actually sold for in the last six months
Why this matters: the value the house gets locked in at is called the stepped-up basis. When you eventually sell, your capital gains tax is calculated based on the difference between the stepped-up basis and the sale price. Get the basis wrong and you overpay taxes for the rest of your life.
Most heirs don't know this. The IRS does.
5. Pick your door — but don't decide alone.
Once the legal authority is sorted and you know what the house is actually worth, you have three real options:
Keep it. Hold it as a family asset. Maybe someone moves in. Maybe it stays empty while things settle. Fine — but understand the carry cost (mortgage + taxes + insurance + maintenance) is now yours.
Rent it. Turn it into cash flow instead of a cost center. Could be a traditional long-term lease, could be a midterm furnished rental, could be a room-by-room situation. Could even be converted to an assisted living facility that pays 3-5× normal rent (if it qualifies). Each has different returns, different tenant types, different legal implications.
Sell it strategically. Not "take the first offer." Sell it with intention — sometimes off-market, sometimes with staging, sometimes to a buyer we already have in the pipeline. The goal is maximum net at closing, not maximum speed.
The right answer is almost never obvious. It depends on your family dynamics, your tax situation, your emotional relationship to the property, and what you want your inheritance to actually do for your life.
That's a conversation. Not a 10-minute one.
What this is really about
Most heirs lose equity in the first 30 days because the pressure to decide outweighs the information to decide well.
You don't owe anyone a decision today. You don't owe the house a timeline. You owe your family member who left this to you a version of yourself that doesn't flinch under pressure — and that starts with the five steps above.
The people who try to rush you are the people who benefit when you rush.
When you're ready
If you want help thinking through any of this — the paperwork, the attorney intro, the valuation, the decision between keep / rent / sell — the Heirs door is open. There's no pressure, no pitch, and no clock. We move at your pace.
Or download the Inherited Property Workbook if you'd rather read through it first.
Ja'el Thomas is a licensed realtor in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia and co-founder of Eminent Estates under the Wanzer Family Office. She co-wrote Before & After the Funeral with her mom Stacey for families navigating exactly this moment.