Selling A House That's Full — You Don't Have To Empty It.

The cleanout is the reason the house never gets sold

People stall on these for years, and it's rarely about the price. It's that every path to selling seems to start with emptying forty years of belongings out of a house — physically, emotionally, and at a cost of thousands in dumpsters and labor before a single buyer has walked through.

So the house sits. Taxes keep coming. Insurance gets harder. Whatever was wrong with the roof gets worse.

You can skip that entire step. We buy the house with the contents in it and deal with the cleanout ourselves after closing.

Cutler Bay: the house had outgrown her

We bought a hoarder house in Cutler Bay from a woman who had reached the point where the property simply wasn't manageable any more. The pool had stopped working and was going to cost tens of thousands to put right. Between that and the state of the house, it wasn't safe or sanitary for her to keep living in as she got older.

What she wanted wasn't top dollar. It was cash and a fresh start somewhere she could actually take care of. We bought it as it was — contents, pool and all.

South Miami: junk cars, lawnmowers, and someone still living there

The South Miami house came with everything. Junk in every room, junk cars in the yard, old lawnmowers. We took all of it.

There was also an occupant living in the house who wasn't one of the heirs. Rather than push that onto the family — or leave it as an obstacle that killed the sale — we paid him to relocate before closing, and we paid for the junk removal. Those costs are priced into the offer, openly, rather than turning up later as a deduction.

What happens to the animals

This is the question people are most afraid to ask, and it comes up more often than you would think — usually where somebody has ended up caring for more cats or dogs than one person can reasonably manage.

They are not thrown out with the rest. On a Little Havana purchase we arranged for an animal shelter to take the animals in before closing, have them looked after and rehomed properly, and we brought in cleaners so the owner's own belongings were clean enough to take with him when he left.

If there are animals in the house, tell us at the start rather than at the end. It changes what has to be organised; it does not change whether we buy.

Why emptying it first almost never pays

A full cleanout on a packed Miami house runs into real money and weeks of labor. What it buys you is a house that shows better. But a buyer like us isn't paying for how it shows — we're pricing the roof, the electric, the plumbing and the structure, and those are the same whether the rooms are full or empty.

So the cleanout money usually comes straight back out of your pocket and doesn't come back in the price. The exception is if you're listing on the open market to a retail buyer with a mortgage, where condition and appearance drive the appraisal. That's a different sale, and if that's the right move for your house, we'll tell you.

What to take out before we close

Once we close, whatever is left is ours to dispose of, and disposal is exactly what happens to it. So walk it once for:

• Documents — deeds, titles, tax records, insurance policies, military records
• Photographs and anything of family value
• Jewelry, cash, firearms, prescriptions
• Titles and keys for any vehicles, if you want to keep them

Anything you don't want to touch, leave. That's the point.

Get My Cash Offer

Other guides

Selling a House in Probate · Inherited a House That Needs Work · When Heirs Disagree · Open Permits & Violations · Stalled Builds & Unsafe Structures · Spotting a Real Cash Buyer · Inherited a Reverse Mortgage · Behind on an FHA Loan