This is a recap of Episode 1 of the Probate Real Estate Power Sessions podcast, a long-form case study with Brandon Mirabal of Caring Transitions of Greater Austin.
If you have inherited property in Texas but you live somewhere else, this one is for you. The estate at the center of it had almost every hard element stacked together: an out-of-state executor, a hoarding-spectrum home, a tenant with no lease, and a business to unwind. Here is how it actually went.
This article is for informational purposes only and is not legal, financial, or real estate advice. Talk to a qualified attorney, financial advisor, or real estate professional about your specific situation.
The Situation: One Heir in New York, an Entire Estate in Austin
The client, who we will call Robert, lived in New York. His brother had moved to Austin decades earlier, built a successful plumbing business, and passed away. Robert came through the court process, became executor, and then faced what was actually a complex estate from an asset standpoint:
- Two residential houses, side by side.
- A leased plumbing warehouse full of inventory: fixtures, pipes, work trucks, plus recreational vehicles like a fishing boat and an RV.
- A business to wind down completely, including payroll and taxes.
His words, more or less: “I just got through probate, I’m the executor, I need to unwind this, and I’m overwhelmed.” That is the normal starting point for an out-of-state executor. You do not live where the property is, you do not know who to trust, you do not know which vendors to call, and you have no boots on the ground. Left alone, this drags on for a long time.
What everyone in a probate estate actually wants is the same thing: closure. The process is long, expensive, and draining. People want the estate closed, everyone paid, and their life back.
Why "Just Use Any Agent" Was Not the Answer
A general agent would not have been enough here, before you even get to the probate-specific complexity. A striking number of licensed agents sell very few houses in a year. Hand a complex, out-of-state, multi-property estate to someone selling their only house of the year, with no vendor network, and the closure Robert needed does not happen.
The approach used instead was a simple three-step process:
- Meet and listen. A Zoom call to understand what the client actually needs. Real estate intersects with a lot of other things in probate, principally the decedent’s personal property.
- Build a strategy. Every estate has commonalities but its own thumbprint, usually with at least one wild card. The strategy targets the most efficient path to closure.
- Execute together. A partnership with the executor and, often, the wider group of heirs making collaborative decisions.
The Three Problems, Tackled One at a Time
The decedent's house
The house was in a strong Austin location but had heavy deferred maintenance, holes in the wall, and was full of belongings, what the episode describes as being “on the spectrum” of disorganization rather than a binary hoarding label. Worth noting: a property like this can still be sold with everything in it. It is not ideal, but it can be done and has been done. The reason to clear it here was partly value and partly respect for the person and their belongings, treating the home and its contents with dignity rather than just hauling it all away.
This is where Caring Transitions came in. Their team does an in-person consultation and sorts everything into trash, donation, and sellable. Most furnishings here were donation quality rather than worth the time to resell, and a good partner works to keep donated items out of the landfill through churches, Salvation Army, and Goodwill.
The tenant next door with no lease
The second house had a tenant who had been an employee of the decedent, living there with his family and a young child on a handshake agreement. No written lease. The landlord who made that oral arrangement was gone and could not tell anyone the terms. Unwinding that takes patient, personal social engineering with the tenant, not a form. Deliberately, this was not tackled first, out of respect for a family with a young child.
The warehouse and the vehicles
The commercial side had high-ticket items worth the time to market: plumbing inventory, work trucks, a fishing boat, an RV. Several vehicles had sat unused for a long time. The decision was made to invest in getting them running, new batteries across the board, some new tires, oil changes and tune-ups, sometimes a tow to a shop, because a vehicle shown to run sells for far more than one with flat tires and a dead battery sold purely as-is.
A practical note for out-of-state executors: finding the keys is often the first real obstacle. Homes like this commonly have piles of unidentified keys, expired tags, and old gas. None of the vehicles in this estate started on the first try.
When money is tight, which is common since executors often front the legal costs, a liquidation partner may front a repair cost on a vehicle expected to clear that cost and recoup it at sale, after laying out the options plainly: sell it as-is for less, or invest a little and net more, with time as the deciding factor.
The Decision That Saved Money: Time Over Trinkets
The recurring theme: the real estate is almost always the majority of the estate’s value, and it carries holding costs and risk every day it sits.
For Robert’s main house, a full liquidation sale of the contents might have produced only a couple thousand dollars and taken two to four weeks. A trash-and-donation clearout, pulling a few sellable items, took a one-to-three-day window. In the episode’s example, the estate was looking at a roughly $400,000 property transaction against five to ten thousand dollars of household goods. Holding up the large transaction to chase the small one did not make sense, and Robert came to that conclusion himself.
The principle stated plainly: once you have the authority to sell, move quickly. Everything delaying the sale is costing the estate money, through declining market timing, a freeze that bursts pipes, or a squatter who has to be removed. People always assume it will not happen to them. It can.
For the step-by-step version of how this clearout-and-liquidation process works, see the companion how-to on estate liquidation steps linked below. This recap stays focused on the case study itself.
Why This Comes Down to Trust
Most people go through probate once. A broker and a liquidation partner who do it constantly carry the context and the bird’s-eye view a first-timer cannot have. That gap is exactly where the value is, and it is also why trust is the whole game. For an out-of-state heir who does not have the network or the local connections, being handed off to vetted, battle-tested vendors is the service. Assembling that team early, legal, real estate, personal-property liquidation, accounting, is what gets an estate like Robert’s to closure efficiently instead of dragging out for a year.
Watch the full video on YouTube: Out-of-State Heir Case Study: Selling and Clearing a Texas Probate Home
Frequently Asked Questions
I inherited property in Texas but I live in another state. Where do I even start?
Start by getting someone local you can trust with a vendor network on the ground. The fastest path is meeting to lay out the full situation, building a strategy around the most efficient route to closing the estate, and executing it together, rather than trying to manage everything remotely yourself.
Can a house be sold in Texas with all the belongings still in it?
Yes. A property can be sold as-is with contents still inside. It is not always ideal, and clearing it can add value or respect the family’s wishes, but it is a real option, especially when speed matters more than the contents.
What makes an out-of-state probate estate complex?
Multiple properties, a tenant with no written lease, a business to unwind, and vehicles left behind all stack difficulty. Each gets tackled one at a time, usually starting with what is easiest to access and least disruptive to people living in the property.
How do you sell vehicles left behind in an estate?
Vehicles can be sold through an online auction platform, often after a modest investment in batteries, tires, and a tune-up so they run, since a working vehicle sells for far more than one sold dead as-is. For an out-of-state heir, the title still has to be signed by the heir and returned.
Why does trust matter so much in probate real estate?
Because the executor is usually doing this once, under stress, while being flooded with offers, and has to rely on people they cannot easily vet. Working with vetted, experienced partners removes friction and gets the estate to closure faster.
You Don't Have to Fly Down and Figure It Out Alone
If you are an out-of-state heir or executor with a Texas estate, two houses, a business, a tenant, a garage full of vehicles, whatever the stack is, I coordinate the whole team and the sale so it gets to closure without you living on a plane.
Call 512-686-3076 or visit texasprobaterealestate.com. No pressure, no obligation.