Out-of-Town Niece Sells Aunt's Home After She Takes a Fall

A niece took on the sale of her elderly aunt’s home of over 20 years after she had taken a nasty fall. The house had a failed sewer line, a cracked retaining wall and a slow start. It sold for all cash with every contingency waived, and closed on the day the family asked for.

Location: A hillside neighborhood, limited parking but good proximity to amenities
Beds / Baths: 3 / 2
Living area: 1,259 sq ft, single level
Lot: 5,401 sq ft
Garage: Attached 2-car
Owned by the seller: More than 20 years

The Result

Sold at the adjusted list price to an all-cash buyer who removed every contingency when they signed.

Original list price: $1,250,000
Adjusted list price: $1,200,000
Sale price: $1,200,000 (about $953 per square foot)
Financing: All cash, no loan or appraisal contingency
Listing to accepted offer: 49 days
Escrow: 13 days, closing on the date the family chose
Compared with the automated value: About 19% above the CoreLogic estimate taken just before listing

The Family’s Story

The seller had lived in the house for more than two decades and kept it clean, bright and cared for. But one day, she fell down the stairs going from the house into the garage, a drop of about four feet onto hard concrete. She broke a bone and fractured another, which required a hospital visit and then a stay in rehabilitation facility as she healed up. Her only living family was a niece who lived in Arizona. The niece immediately took charge, as she was the sole trustee and beneficiary of the aunt’s trust.

The niece and her husband drove up to clear out and pack the house, fitting the work in around visits to her aunt, bank appointments and trips for packing supplies. Every decision went through her first (“Let me check with my aunt”), and she kept track of the details. On the morning of our walkthrough, she texted to remind me to bring back the trust paperwork: “Don’t want to lose track of it.”

My job was to make the sale as light a load as possible for both of them. That meant clear explanations, quick answers by text, and someone local to handle everything at the house. I never met or even spoke with the aunt, working with the niece the entire time.

Living room before — Before: the living room

Living room after — After: the living room

Back patio before — Before: the back patio

Back patio after — After: the back patio

The Challenge

The first surprise came on day one. The county requires a sewer lateral inspection when a home sells. Within hours of the listing agreement being signed, the plumber called me: the house had no sewer cleanout, so the line couldn’t be inspected without installing one first.

I explained it to the niece by text: what a sewer lateral is, why most older homes in the county don’t have a cleanout, and that the county decides whether repairs are needed. I recommended a plumber I trust. Years earlier, a city public works inspector had quietly told me this plumber’s work passed inspection more often than anyone else’s. I offered to get a second opinion. Her answer: “I trust your opinion.”

We arranged for the $1,500 cleanout to be paid from escrow at closing, so the family didn’t pay anything up front. The inspection then found more:

Failed sewer lateral: The 64-foot concrete line had several large offsets and dirt infiltration. The replacement bid was $11,800.
Cracked retaining wall: The rear wall was leaning and cracked, and the home inspector strongly recommended an engineer’s evaluation. A buyer’s contractor later estimated $15,000 to $20,000 to fix it.
Termite report: Wood-boring beetles and drywood termites, with $6,070 in Section 1 work including tent fumigation.
The layout: Stairs up from the garage and driveway, and a back yard you can only reach through the garage or the primary bedroom.

How We Answered It

Disclose, don’t repair: Rather than spend the family‘s money on major repairs, we put every report in front of buyers so they could price the issues in from the start.
Sewer lateral: County rules let the buyer take responsibility for replacing the lateral after closing. As president of the Santa Cruz County Association of REALTORS®, I had worked to get that option into the ordinance. I gave the family three choices and recommended this one.
Disclosures: I coached the niece through the seller disclosure forms with one rule: better to over-disclose than under-disclose.
Full package on day one: Eleven reports went online the day the home went live, including the home, termite and sewer inspections, natural hazard report, measured floor plan, property report, home warranty and my own visual inspection.
Neighborhood watch: I set the niece up with a live feed of every new listing, sale and price change near her aunt’s home, so she could see the competition as it happened.

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Getting the House Ready

The niece wanted the house to look its best without a big project. I brought in a local painter who takes small jobs to repair a crack in the kitchen ceiling. When her husband suggested painting the lower part of the back of the house too, we added it to the job, using paint the family already had.

I met a helper at the house to pressure wash and clean up the landscaping, scheduled carpet cleaning, and booked professional photos, drone, video and a 3D tour, all within the first ten days. Later, when the niece noticed the plants drying out (her aunt had no irrigation), I made sure they got watered for the rest of the listing.

The Launch

The home went live on the MLS late on a Wednesday night, ten days after the listing agreement was signed. It had its own property website with the video and virtual tour, and a QR code on the sign rider. No showings were allowed before the first open house that Saturday, on Mother’s Day weekend.

Over the next few weeks we ran an email campaign to about 6,000 contacts, paid Facebook, Instagram and Google ads, broker previews and more open houses, including Memorial Day weekend.

First Month Results

10 groups through the first open house
6 open houses in total, with more than 30 groups through
27 agents and buyers opened the full disclosure package before an offer came in
A Redfin “Hot Home” tag in the first week
A written progress report to the family every week, followed by a phone call

Every report passed along agent feedback word for word, including the unflattering comments: “too small,” “too much concrete, not enough dirt,” and a back yard one visitor called a “fishbowl” as a two-story neighbor next door had a clear view down into the back yard. The niece’s reply: “I agree with the fishbowl comment.”

The Price Adjustment

One reduction, backed by evidence, instead of a slow series of cuts.

Buyers liked the location but kept backing away over the wall, the stairs and the yard. After only four private showings in nineteen days, I widened the comps to a three-mile radius between $900,000 and $1.5 million, noted slow overall market conditions, and recommended a single $50,000 reduction. The family agreed, and the new price went live at the end of May.

Activity picked up within days:

Private showings: 4 in the 19 days before the change, 6 in the 5 days after
Disclosure downloads: 9 in the 20 days before the change, 6 in the 5 days after
The next two weeks: 7 showings, then 5

Primary bedroom before — Before: the primary bedroom

Primary bedroom after — After: the primary bedroom

Primary bath before — Before: the primary bath

Primary bath after — After: the primary bath

The Hardest Part: Waiting

By mid-June, three agents had told me their buyers were seriously interested, but nobody had written an offer. One agent promised an offer and never sent it, and her buyers bought a nearby home on a flat lot instead. The niece was hearing about it from her aunt. “She is really starting to pester me,” she texted, with a laugh.

I gave the family a line-by-line value comparison with the home the other buyers chose, covering cosmetics, stairs, yard, location, and schools, so they could see exactly why buyers were choosing it. After a very quiet weekend open house, the niece asked whether it was time to lower the price again. My advice was to wait a day or two, because three buyers were circling. “Praying to the Offer Gods,” she replied.

The offer arrived two days later.

The Offer

The buyers had sent their own contractor to price the retaining wall before they wrote. Because the disclosure package had been complete from day one, there was nothing left for them to discover.

The offer landed in the niece’s inbox first thing in the morning. Five minutes later she texted: “Looks good. Let’s do it!” We countered to set the closing date the family wanted. She also caught an expiration date on the buyer’s form that didn’t make sense, which turned out to be a typo. By that afternoon we were in contract.

Price: $1,200,000, 100% of the adjusted list price
Financing: All cash
Deposit: 3%, wired within three business days
Contingencies: All removed at signing, inspections waived
Repairs: The buyer took on the sewer lateral and retaining wall, in exchange for a negotiated seller credit
Close of escrow: 13 days, on the date set in the family’s counter offer

Closing From a Campground

Escrow ran over the Fourth of July weekend, and the niece was camping, with no printer or scanner. “I’m in a campground and not sure how I can get them scanned back to you,” she texted on a Sunday morning. I had the escrow company send everything through DocuSign so she could sign on her phone, and I followed up when their documents were slow to arrive over the holiday.

Her aunt needed help too. She held title in a trust, so I raised the trust paperwork with the title company in the first week of the listing, not the last week of escrow. I made sure she had a valid photo ID for the mobile notary who met her for signing. When she was uneasy about giving personal information to escrow over the phone, her niece handled it for her.

On the morning of closing, the niece signed the county form transferring sewer lateral responsibility to the buyer. She asked when her aunt’s money would arrive, and I walked her through how recording and wire cutoffs work. The sale recorded that afternoon.

Timeline

Day 1: Listing agreement signed. The plumber finds there’s no sewer cleanout
Days 2 to 9: Inspections, ceiling repair and paint, landscaping, carpet cleaning, photos and video
Day 10: Live on MLS at $1,250,000
Day 13: First open house, 10 groups
Day 31: Price adjusted to $1,200,000
Day 59: All-cash offer accepted, contingencies removed
Day 62: The niece signs escrow documents from a campground
Day 72: Closed and recorded

“Thank you again for everything. You are by far the hardest working and best realtor we have ever had the pleasure of working with.”

The seller’s niece, on closing day

Thinking About Selling for a Family Member?

Selling a parent‘s or relative’s home is hard to do from a distance, especially when the house needs work. My approach: find out what’s wrong before buyers do, put all of it in front of them, take the local work off the family’s plate, and keep everyone informed every week until the sale closes.

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Out-of-Town Niece Sells Aunt’s Home After She Takes a Fall

The Result

The Family’s Story