This sounds like an obvious question with obvious answer: Yes!
Unfortunately it’s not always this simple. Parents want to give their kids as much as they can. You accumulate a lot of stuff through life: money, trinkets, cars, fine china, baseball cards, and maybe a home. You want to leave your children anything that could help them.
Most of the time, when homeowners are leaving a property to their kids as an inheritance they think of it as a way to give them a tangible form of money. But there’s a side of this that isn’t talked about much: An appreciating asset vs. depreciating liability.
We’ve talked with multiple sellers who have a home that is falling apart, uninhabited, not clean or updated, and has only a few sentimental items that are only special to them while the rest of the house is stuff that will be sold or thrown away.
As a family owned business we fully understand the desire to provide for your children and give them everything. But sometimes families have to talk about hard but real concerns. Have you asked your children if they’d prefer the house or the money from the sale? Just last month we spoke with a home owner who owns two homes. She lives in one and the other is vacant and has been for years. It’s falling apart and is not in good condition, but she refuses to sell because she wants to leave the house to her children when she passes away.
What’s wrong with that?…Well it will be worth far less than it is now because it’s deteriorating. Now if you have rental properties with tenants in them that are paying, and the properties are in good condition, please give them to your children. If your home or your second home are well maintained and up to the standards of the Greensboro neighborhood it’s in, or your children have the desire to make that a project and keep it maintained, then please leave them your hard earned properties.
But if it’s deteriorating, significantly behind the times, in need of serious repairs, or vacant for long periods of time, have a conversation with your loved ones and see what they value. Depending on the situation you could have several options to sell your home. Contact us and we’ll be happy to talk through your options and see if Lehti Homes is good fit to buy your Greensboro home. If not, we’ll point you in the right direction and do everything we can to help you make the best decisions for you and your family.
Now give yourself a pat on the back. You took the time to read this which shows that you care about your loved ones. That’s special.