Your clients are about to acquire real estate. Are you ready for that conversation?
When the client closes on the home, the job feels complete. The loan is funded, the keys are handed over, and everyone moves on to the next deal. But for a growing share of American home buyers, that time is just the beginning of the story. The next chapter shows years later, often at a worse time.
A friend of mine inherited his father’s home a few years ago. His father worked hard all his life, paid for the house, and he sincerely believed that he was leaving something important for his son… And he did. But he never established a trust or revised his act. His will was out of date and the papers scattered. What was supposed to be a straightforward sale turned into months of back and forth with attorneys, title companies, and county offices, all while my friend was in agony. He ended up being successful. But she was devastated in a way that had nothing to do with losing her father and everything to do with a process that didn’t have to be that difficult.
I think about that story often, because it keeps coming up. Not just with friends, but in conversations with colleagues across the mortgage and real estate space. The details change, but the result is often the same.
We began to wonder if this was a pattern or just an anecdote. So we surveyed 1,000 Americans, evenly divided between people who received an inheritance in the last 20 years and people who expect one in the next 20 years. We wanted to know how often real estate is part of an estate, what heirs do with it compared to what they think they will do, when things go wrong, and whether buyers are open to hearing about professional estate planning and finance already helping them buy homes.
Forty-four percent of future heirs expect real estate to be part of their inheritance, compared to 32% of those who have already received it. That gap makes sense when you consider how much home values have risen and how much real estate wealth Boomers own. When heirs receive a home, more than 70% face an immediate decision about what to do with it. Previous heirs sold or rented at a rate of 73%. Future heirs say 71% will do the same.
That’s a lot of real estate transactions not from a purchase decision, but from a death (most likely in the family).
The gap between intention and reality
The number I keep coming back to: 36% of future heirs say they plan to keep the property and rent it out. Of the people who actually inherited, only 17% did so.
It’s easy to understand why the system is falling apart. A person inherits a house, figures to hold it as a rental, then the roof needs work, there is a mortgage, siblings have strong opinions, and managing the property while settling the estate is really stressful. So they sell; usually immediately. Often without prepared documents, and often with some conflict that advance planning could have avoided.
Unexpected expenses were the top point of conflict in our data, cited by 28% of respondents overall and anticipated by 38% of future heirs. Questions of title and ownership affected 19%. Lost or expired documents, the exact situation my friend ran into, went up to 18%. These problems are not confined to the world of estate planning. They appear in the article report. They are slow to close. Real estate professionals are often the ones who deal with the mess, even if the cause happened years before the property hit the market.
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Buying a home was the first step in housing planning for 23% of Gen Z respondents, before marriage, having a child, or fearing health. Among Millennials it is tied for first at 16%. People in the middle of buying are already thinking about ownership and protection through home planning. That’s really useful to know.
And most of the time, no one brings up estate planning at closing because I think it might sound like overkill. It is not part of the normal workflow. But 37% of Americans say they will take real estate planning guidance from their real estate agent, loan officer, or title specialist. Among Gen Z that rises to 56%. These clients do not really expect their lawyer to initiate the conversation. They are open to hearing from someone they already trust.
It doesn’t have to be complicated. Saying that many buyers use this time to confirm that they have an interest or prospect in a property, and point them towards a property, is a natural extension of the relationship that many real estate professionals are already trying to build.
A real opportunity
Lenders and agents who start thinking about this now will be in a better position than those who wait. Not because real estate planning is a new revenue stream, but because customers remember who came from them beyond the purchase.
My friend sold his father’s house. It took longer than it should have, cost more than it needed to, and added stress to an already painful time. I think his father had every intention of straightening out his affairs, but he never got around to it. That scenario will play out millions of times over the next twenty years. Experts who are already in the room at the time of purchase have a real opportunity to help families avoid it. Many did not think so.
Data cited is from the Trust & Will survey of 1,000 US adults conducted by Talker Research, January 28 to February 4, 2026.
Cody Barbo is the founder and CEO of Trust & Will
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of HousingWire’s editorial department and its owners. To contact the editor responsible for this piece: [email protected].
