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Just months after Anne Boice and her brother, Adam Schumacher, started their real estate business in Central Florida, they found themselves in an impossible situation: Their parents died within months of each other, leaving the siblings their homes.
To say it was a shock is an understatement. “We were already trying to figure out what to do with our dad’s estate out of state, and now we had to take on our mom’s as well,” Boice tells Realtor.com®.
The siblings’ experience gave them what Boice calls “two very extreme examples” of inheritance in action—one home close by and in good shape, another burdened by distance, deferred maintenance, and the costly surprises that come with it.
Together, they offer a sobering look at what happens when inherited homes hit the market.
While family homes are often framed as the cornerstone of generational wealth, for heirs, a home’s condition and the cost of carrying it can quickly reshape what an inheritance is actually worth.
That’s also why investors, despite their reputation, can end up playing a central role in these sales.
“People feel like investors are trying to lowball you and steal the house,” says Boice. But in her view, many heirs are weighing grief and a vision of what they thought their inheritance would someday be, rather than the hard facts of the market.
As Boice puts it: “Bob down the street told me grandma’s house is worth $600,000. Well, maybe when everything is fixed up and brand new. But in the condition it is, it is not worth that now.”
In the years ahead, more families are likely to confront that same question: When a family home finally hits the market, who is really in the best position to profit from it?
Case study 1: What a best-case inheritance can look like
Unlike their father’s house in far off-Ohio, Boice’s mother’s home was in the same town where she and her brother lived. That alone removed one of the biggest sources of friction: They knew the neighborhood, knew the local service providers, and did not have to manage the property from hundreds of miles away while paying for flights, hotels, and extended stays.
Just as importantly, the house itself “was in much better condition,” says Boice.
While it had been built in the late 1970s, it already had meaningful updates. The roof was newer, the systems were in good shape, and the work needed before listing was largely cosmetic.
That led Boice and her brother to consider keeping the property as a rental. They had inherited it free and clear, and it seemed like exactly the kind of house that could generate steady income.
But after thinking it through, they decided against it. They didn’t want the added responsibility of becoming landlords, particularly with a home that had sentimental value.
They chose to sell while the market was still surging. Boice says they spent only about $5,000 replacing dated countertops, touching up paint, and cleaning the house. Their existing network also helped speed everything along.
Between those connections and a fast-moving Florida market, the house moved quickly. “It was under contract within a week,” she says.
Case study 2: How equity can leak away
If Boice’s mother’s house represented the best-case version of inheritance, her father’s home in Ohio showed how quickly that value can begin to erode.
From the start, the siblings were at a disadvantage: The house was out of state, and by the time their father died, they had not seen it in person for close to 15 years.
They expected deferred maintenance, but when they finally got inside, the problems went far beyond what they had expected.
“He stopped taking care of the important things,” Boice says. “We knew the cosmetic stuff, we just didn’t know the extent of the damage behind the cosmetic stuff.”
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There was water damage, an unusable bathroom, a deteriorating chimney, an aging roof, and a home packed with decades’ worth of belongings.
Even clearing the property became its own undertaking.
“We had to physically touch everything,” she says, because important documents and even cash had been tucked away in unexpected places.
Distance made every decision harder and more expensive, too. The siblings had to fly back and forth from Florida to Ohio, stay in hotels, and try to assess contractors and vendors from afar.
They ultimately chose to renovate the house and rent it out, thinking that investing the proceeds from the sale of their mother’s home into a free-and-clear house would allow them to create a long-term asset.
But trying to protect the value of the inheritance only exposed them to more risk. The original renovation budget was about $90,000, but Boice says they spent closer to $120,000.
Some of that was because once walls and systems were opened up, more damage was uncovered. Some of it came down to the realities of managing a project in Ohio from Central Florida. Weather slowed progress. Permits took time. And every delay meant more carrying costs.
“Everything costs money,” Boice says. “You are also paying for holding costs, the taxes, insurance, all of it.”
Why investors keep winning these deals
Investors have earned plenty of skepticism, and not without reason.
In the second quarter of 2025, investors accounted for just under 11% of all home purchases. In many markets, heirs and neighbors alike have watched rundown family homes get snapped up, superficially renovated, and resold at a premium.
Boice has seen that side of the business, too. Some flippers, she says, are simply “slapping lipstick on a pig,” prioritizing cosmetic upgrades while leaving more expensive and essential structural work unresolved.
That reputation is part of why inherited-home sales can feel so fraught. But Boice’s experience suggests there’s another side to the equation. Investors, for all their flaws, can do three things many heirs and other buyers can’t: Price repairs realistically, move quickly, and absorb risk.
That puts heirs in a hard spot. While a lower offer may be disappointing, it also comes with an exit.
Boice says that escape hatch can be just as valuable, because many are under immediate financial pressures from estate bills and the drain of an unwanted house.
“What you get in return is hopefully peace of mind,” Boice says of these deals.
That doesn’t mean all investors are creating value in the same way. Boice draws a clear distinction between those who cut corners and those who take on the hard, expensive work heirs often can’t.
“When we did our dad’s house, we did it right, we took care of the major issues first,” she adds.
Inherited homes are not always liquid wealth
If there’s one lesson Boice took from inheriting and managing her father’s home, it’s that chasing the highest possible return is not always the same as making the best financial decision.
On paper, Boice and her brother seemed unusually well positioned to pull it off: They worked in real estate. They had access to contractors. They understood the logic of renovating a distressed house, renting it out, and eventually selling it for more. They also had proceeds from their mother’s home to help fund the work.
Even with all of that, the margins ended up thin.
The siblings poured far more money into the Ohio home than they initially expected, then watched new problems continue to emerge even after it had been rented. By the time they sold it—after only one year of renting it out—they had recovered their renovation costs and made a modest profit. Just not enough, Boice says, to justify what they had put into it.
“If you were to ask me today, would I do that again? No, I’d sell it to an investor,” she says.
The family home still sits at the center of how many Americans imagine generational wealth: Homeowners are 1.3 times more likely than renters to anticipate leaving assets to the next generation, and they hold a net worth of nearly 38 times that of renters.
But if even an experienced real estate professional like Boice can look back and conclude that trying to maximizing value in the long term was the wrong move, it says something important about how punishing the process can be for ordinary heirs.
For families approaching the so-called great wealth transfer, it’s an uncomfortable but important reality. Homeownership can absolutely be a bridge to generational wealth—but only if heirs can cross it without losing too much of the value along the way.
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