The Estate Home
Sale Process.

The process starts with a phone call. Twenty to thirty minutes. We talk about the home, the people, the timing, the attorney, the estate sale company if there is one. I take notes. I do not send paperwork on that first call.

Then I come out to the property — or, if the home is empty and you are out of state, I tour by video and walk every room with you on the phone. I pull the Pima County parcel record before I arrive. I scan Google Street View and satellite imagery so I know the block before I knock on the door. I look at what the algorithms see and at what the algorithms cannot see.

I leave the walk with three pricing paths in mind — velocity, strategic, and stretch — and I bring them back to the kitchen table within 48 hours with full net-to-seller math at each tier. No surprises. No fine print. The same numbers go to you, to your attorney, and to any partner who sent you to me.

Once we have agreed on a path, I bring in a pre-listing inspector and we look at the home roof to foundation. Plumbing leaks. Sewer line. Attic. Crawl space. Roof life left. HVAC. Electrical. Anything a buyer would find in their own inspection three weeks from now.

The reason is unromantic and important. After a buyer has the home under contract, every issue they find is a price renegotiation. Before they have it under contract, every issue we find is a known item we have already priced or already fixed. The difference between those two postures is real money.

Estate homes typically need three kinds of work: the contents (furniture, clothes, paperwork, decades of belongings), the cosmetic (paint, flooring, landscape, a deep clean), and the mechanical (anything the inspection flagged). I do not run any of it without your approval, and I do not pretend to be a contractor.

For the contents, I introduce you to The Girls Estate Sales — a Tucson partner I have worked with for years. They run an on-site estate sale, distribute proceeds, and donate the remainder so the estate can take the tax credit. Their sale runs first. The listing photography is scheduled the day after the contents are out so the home shows empty and ready.

For cosmetic and mechanical work, I have a vendor list I have built over fifteen years at Long Realty. Paint, flooring, landscape, electrician, plumber, roof. The estate either oversees the work directly or I coordinate it — whichever takes the weight off your week.

I understand that cash can be tight in the middle of an estate. There are financing structures that let the work happen now and the costs settle at closing. I will walk through those with you only if you want to.

Photography day is Anthony Muse. Same photographer on every Lopez & Lopez listing for years. Floor plan drafted. Walking-through video filmed. If the home calls for it, a 3D Matterport tour. The listing photos and the marketing assets are produced before the home is live on MLS, not the week after.

Day one on market, the listing pushes through Long Realty Smart Move to Zillow, Realtor.com, Redfin, Trulia, Homes.com, and the brokerage network simultaneously. The yard sign goes up. Mail postcards go out to the immediate neighborhood — neighbors often know who is looking. Social and email outreach to the buyer-agent network the same day.

Then the part most agents handle poorly: I read the showing feedback every morning, I track every cooperating agent who books a tour, and I send you a written Friday update. If a cooperating agent puts a specific price in writing, that quote becomes part of the file. I do not improvise.

Once we have an accepted offer, escrow opens at the title company of your choice. Inspection, appraisal, repair negotiation if any, title work, final walkthrough. Jeff Morris is my transaction coordinator. He runs the paperwork. I run the people.

For out-of-state heirs, every document is electronic. DocuSign for signatures, mobile notary where Arizona requires wet ink. I have closed estate transactions where four siblings in four different states signed everything by mail. None of them flew in.

My associate broker, Tana Lopez, reviews every contract before it is sent for signature. If something is off, she finds it. That review is the reason this office has never had a transaction unwind for a compliance miss.