Cotality tracked a record number in the year ending August 2025: 340,000 US properties transferred through inheritance, 7% of every property transfer in the country, the highest share the firm has recorded. That share has been rising as owners age and hold their homes longer. Every one of those transfers eventually needs an agent, and most agent websites have nothing written for the person actually making that decision.
What most sites have instead
Search a handful of agent websites for probate content and two patterns repeat. Either there is nothing at all, or there is a generic "sell your house fast" page that never mentions a court, an executor, or an estate.
That gap matters because a probate seller is not shopping the way a typical seller is. They did not decide to sell in the ordinary sense. A parent, sibling, or relative died, and now someone has to figure out what happens to a house, often while grieving and without much background in real estate or estate law. A page built for a homeowner ready to list ignores everything specific to that situation: the legal authority to sell, the appraisal the court may require, and the fact that more than one person might have a say.
The other place executors end up is an attorney's blog post explaining probate law in dense legal language with no mention of what the actual home-selling process looks like. Neither kind of page answers the real question: what do I do next, and who do I call first.
The general probate process, and why it varies by state
Probate is the court process that settles a deceased person's estate: validating the will, paying debts, and distributing what remains to heirs. When the estate includes a house, that house usually cannot sell until certain steps happen first.
HomeLight's probate guide describes the general sequence: probate opens with the court, the executor (also called a personal representative or administrator) is formally appointed, the estate gets a required appraisal, and only then can the executor market and sell the property. Opendoor's guide adds that the process commonly runs 9 to 24 months from death to closing, with most sales completing within 6 to 12 months, compared to roughly 60 days for a typical sale.
Here is the part a page needs to get right instead of glossing over: probate law is state law, not federal law, and the rules for who can sign, whether the court has to approve the sale price, and how long each step takes differ by state. Some states grant an executor "independent administration" authority, which allows a sale to close without a judge signing off on the price. Other states require a formal court confirmation hearing, where the judge can even accept a higher bid made in the courtroom over the accepted offer. A page that claims one universal process for every state will be wrong for a meaningful share of its readers. The honest version tells the reader what the general steps usually look like, then tells them plainly to confirm the specific rule with a probate attorney licensed in their state.
The CPRES certification, described accurately
CPRES stands for Certified Probate Real Estate Specialist, a course and exam offered by MTI Education. It is not issued by the National Association of Realtors and it does not extend a real estate license. It is a private certification that agents complete voluntarily.
The course covers probate law basics, how to work with the court and the estate's attorney, and how to market specifically to probate leads. Earning it requires passing a 25-question multiple-choice exam. Naming this accurately on a probate page matters: describing CPRES as a specialized private course an agent chose to complete, rather than implying it is a government or NAR-issued license, keeps the page honest and avoids overselling a credential that courts and attorneys treat as a useful signal, not a legal requirement.
If an agent holds the CPRES designation, that is worth stating plainly on the page along with what it actually means: training in the probate timeline and in working alongside the court and the family's attorney, not a special legal authority to close a sale faster.
Two audiences, and they do not always agree
A probate page needs to speak to two different people, and this is the gap that shows up even on the rare site that does have some probate content.
The executor or administrator is the person the court appointed to manage the estate. They are searching for practical help: what paperwork is needed, what the appraisal involves, how to find a probate attorney if they do not already have one, and what a realistic timeline looks like. Their questions tend to be procedural, because they are the one who has to actually get the sale done correctly.
The heirs are a separate group, and they do not always want the same thing the executor wants, or the same thing each other wants. One sibling may want to sell quickly and split the cash. Another may want to keep the house, or believes it is worth more than the appraisal says, or has an emotional attachment that makes the whole idea of selling difficult. Bankrate's guide to heir agreement and similar guides from HomeLight and Opendoor describe this as a common source of delay and conflict, one that mediation sometimes resolves when the disagreement is about price or timing rather than legal authority to sell.
A page that only speaks to the executor misses the heirs reading over their shoulder, sometimes literally searching the same terms from a different device. A short section acknowledging that heirs may disagree, and that the personal representative generally has legal authority to move the process forward once the court has granted it, treats a real and common tension honestly instead of pretending every family agrees the moment a house is inherited.
What a generic seller page leaves out
A probate page needs to exist separately from a standard "sell your home" page because it covers ground that page does not.
The court timeline. A regular listing does not involve a judge. A probate sale, in states that require confirmation, does, and that timeline is not something an agent controls. The page should set the expectation early so an executor does not expect a hearing to happen faster than the 30 to 60 days it usually takes, after they thought the deal was done.
As-is condition and deferred maintenance. Inherited homes often sat under an aging owner's reduced upkeep for years, or stood vacant after a death. An old roof, an outdated electrical panel, cosmetic wear nobody addressed: this is normal for probate listings and does not mean the property is a bad one. Estates commonly prefer to sell as-is rather than spend estate funds on repairs that may not be recovered in the sale price. A page that assumes the home needs to show like a fresh renovation sets the wrong expectation.
Multiple-heir decision-making. Covered above, and worth repeating here because it is the single detail most likely to be missing from a page written by someone who has not sold a probate property before.
Working with the estate's attorney. The attorney and the agent play different roles, and a page that explains the split removes real confusion for a first-time executor. The attorney files the probate petition, manages creditor claims, and handles court paperwork. The agent handles pricing, marketing, showings, and the offer. Naming this division plainly, rather than assuming the reader already understands it, is the kind of specific detail that separates a page written by someone who has done this work from one written by a template.
Writing it so it gets found and cited
A probate page competes for informational searches, the kind someone runs before they are ready to talk to an agent: how to sell a house in probate, do all heirs have to agree to sell inherited property, what does probate real estate mean. These are not "find me an agent near me" searches yet, and the page should not act like they are.
That means the page ranks, and gets cited by an AI assistant answering the same question, because it is specific and useful before it asks the reader for anything. Naming the actual court in your county that handles probate confirmation hearings, describing how local probate attorneys in your market typically structure the referral relationship, stating plainly which of the general steps above apply in your state: that level of detail is what a generic national guide cannot offer and what a well-built local page can.
Probate properties are also a common source of listings for investor buyers, since estates are often motivated by time and cost rather than maximizing price, which makes a fast cash offer genuinely appealing to some executors. A brief, honest mention of that option on the probate page, without steering every reader toward it, respects that some sellers will want to compare a traditional listing against a quick sale.
This audience also overlaps in one useful way with downsizing clients: both involve a house the previous owner can no longer or no longer wants to live in, just for a different reason. And if you are also building a page for the other major forced-sale seller type, a divorce, our companion piece on selling a house during a divorce covers the same kind of two-audience structure applied to a split rather than a death.
The takeaway
A record 340,000 US homes changed hands through inheritance in the year ending August 2025, and the agents selling them mostly point executors toward a page built for an ordinary seller. Building the right page means being honest that probate law varies by state instead of promising one universal process, naming the CPRES certification accurately if you hold it, writing separately to the executor and to the heirs who may not agree with each other, and covering the court timeline and as-is condition that a generic seller page skips.
If your site currently has nothing for this audience, that is worth checking against how often probate and inherited-property inquiries actually reach you, even informally. A website rebuild is one way to add a page like this with the structure and detail that gets found by these searches and cited by AI assistants answering them. The FAQ and contact pages are a good place to start if you have questions about how a page like this fits into your site.
