Chris Buys Homes in Metro Detroit Blog

Owner financing a house means you become the lender. The buyer pays you directly over an agreed term instead of handing you a bank’s money at closing, and you hold a promissory note secured by the property. Done well it can widen your pool of buyers and spread the tax hit across years. Done casually […]

The land buyers around Metro Detroit come in four types, and the right one for your lot depends on what surrounds it. The neighbor is the quiet best payer: an adjoining owner who wants your land for a yard, a garage or privacy pays above any formula, because the value to them is personal. Builders […]

You can sell land online free through marketplace sites, classifieds and social groups, and understanding who each channel reaches keeps the free part from costing you months. General marketplaces reach browsers: people who were not looking for land but might notice yours, which suits usable residential lots near populated areas. Land-specific portals reach searchers, though […]

To sell land to a developer, understand what they are buying, because it is not really your lot: it is what your lot could become, and that possibility has to survive zoning, utilities, financing and market timing before it pays. This is why the developer conversation is the highest-paying and slowest one in land. Expect […]

If you are selling, the state of the market buyers are working in matters more than any headline number. Borrowing costs have kept a lot of Metro Detroit buyers cautious, so a well priced home in Royal Oak, Ferndale or Rochester Hills still moves while anything needing work sits. That gap is the whole story. […]

An owner carry loan on a house that still has a mortgage runs into one clause that owns the whole decision: due-on-sale. Nearly every residential mortgage lets the lender demand full payment when the property transfers, which is precisely what an owner carry arrangement does, and owner financing with an existing mortgage is exactly that […]

Choosing to sell a house by owner financing makes sense for a specific kind of home: one that struggles to pass a lender’s tests but suits a buyer who can pay steadily. A house with an unusual layout, a mixed-use past, or condition issues an appraiser will flag can genuinely sell better on terms, because […]

The seller financing pros and cons only mean something filled in with numbers, so here is the ledger. In the pro column: a wider buyer pool, since you can say yes to buyers banks decline; a monthly income stream at an interest rate above what savings pay; a possible spread of the tax bill across […]

The capital gains tax on inherited property is gentler than most heirs fear, because of one rule: the stepped-up basis. When you inherit a house, its tax basis generally resets to market value at the date of death, not what your parents paid decades ago. Sell soon after, and the taxable gain is only the […]

To sell a house you inherited, work three problems in order: authority, agreement, then the sale itself. Authority means proving you can sign. If the home passed through a trust or a deed naming you, that proof may already exist; if not, the probate court supplies it, and whether a house can be sold while […]

A house can be sold while in probate; what the sale waits for is not the estate closing but someone holding authority to sign, and that distinction saves families months. In Michigan, the probate court appoints a personal representative, and letters of authority give that person power to act for the estate, commonly including selling […]

What happens when you inherit a house divides into three questions: how title reaches you, what arrives attached to it, and which clocks start ticking. Title happens one of three ways in Michigan: a deed that named you and transfers outside probate, a trust that holds the house and distributes it by its terms, or […]

Selling a house in probate runs through five steps, and only the first is genuinely slow. Step one, opening the estate: someone petitions the probate court, Wayne County’s in most Detroit cases, and the court appoints a personal representative; weeks pass here, and nothing else can shortcut them. Step two, letters of authority: the document […]