You inherited a house in Mobile. Nobody hands you a manual.

The first question is not what it is worth

Almost everyone starts with the value. It is the wrong first question, and starting there is how people lose two months.

Start with who actually owns it today. Not who lived there, not whose name is on the mailbox. Whose name is on the deed, and has the estate been through probate.

In our experience around Mobile and Baldwin County, that is where inherited property stalls. The house is fine. The price is fine. The title has three siblings on it, or one deceased owner and no estate ever opened, and nothing can move until that is sorted. Finding out takes a phone call. Finding out at the closing table takes months.

If you do not know, the county probate office is the place to ask, and a real estate attorney is the person to fix it. That is not us. We will tell you when you need one.

What changed on October 1, and why it lands on you

Alabama's Property Protection Act is now in force. It exists because people have been impersonating property owners and selling property that is not theirs, usually land or a house that is standing empty, in transactions run entirely online.

An inherited house between owners is the exact profile. Nobody lives there, the ownership record is in transition, and often the family is in another state. That is not a comment about you. It is a description of what the law was written to stop.

Read the plain-English version of the whole Act here: Alabama's Property Protection Act, what it means when you sell.

Your four options, said plainly

All four are legitimate. Which one is right depends on the house, the family and what you actually need, and anybody who tells you there is only one answer is selling you something.

• Sell it as-is. Fastest and simplest. You take less money and you hand off every repair and every decision. For an out-of-state family with no appetite for a renovation project, this is often the honest answer.
• Fix what pays, then list it. Not a renovation. The specific items that move a buyer, which is usually far fewer things than people expect. More money, more time, and somebody has to manage it locally.
• Rent it out. Keeps the asset and produces income. It also makes you a landlord, with everything that comes with that, which is why the next section exists.
• Keep it in the family. Somebody moves in, or it stays as it is for now. A real choice, and sometimes the right one. It still needs the title sorted and somebody checking on it.

What the Mobile market is actually doing

So the decision is made against real numbers instead of what a cousin heard. These are closed-sale figures for the city of Mobile as of August 2026, the most recent month published.

• Median sale price about $230,000, up 4.6% over the year.
• The typical home went under contract in 45 days, faster than last month, slower than a year ago.
• 20.4% sold above asking, which means roughly four in five did not.
• Homes sold at about 96.9% of list price.

What that means for an inherited property. This is a steady market, not a frantic one. Price growth has cooled from earlier in the year, so the strategy of listing high and waiting for the market to catch up does not work right now. Prepared, accurately priced homes are the ones selling.

What to do first, in order

1. Confirm the ownership. Deed, estate paperwork, and whether probate is needed. Everything else waits on this.
2. Secure the property. Locks, mail, insurance. Check whether the insurer knows it is vacant, because many policies change when a house is unoccupied and nobody finds out until there is a claim.
3. Have somebody lay eyes on it. Especially if the family is out of state.
4. Gather your identification and ownership records before you need them, for the reason in the section above.
5. Then get the numbers: what it would sell for as-is, what it would sell for prepared, and what it would rent for. All three, side by side.

Questions we get