If you are responsible for preparing a house for sale after an owner's death, the work is real: the upkeep, the paperwork, the sale itself. This page explains what we do, from the brokerage side of the process.
We sell the house and manage everything around the sale — pricing, preparation, cleanout coordination, showings, negotiation, and closing logistics. Your attorney handles the legal side of the estate; we work alongside them and stay in our lane.
Evan Howell Properties is a family-owned Houston brokerage, founded in 1982. We offer residential sales and property management in Harris County. Evan Howell is the sponsoring broker (TREC #316604) and Shana Hill is the designated broker (TREC #648719). A real estate license alone does not authorize giving legal advice, and we don't give any. What we bring is the other half of an estate sale: a considered view of what the house is worth, getting it ready, and moving it to closing without the sale itself becoming one more burden.
No. We handle the sale; legal questions about the estate belong with your attorney. A real estate license alone does not authorize giving legal advice.
In practice that means we coordinate closely with counsel: we time the listing and the closing around their guidance, send them whatever the title company asks for, and never advise you on court procedure, on who inherits what, or on which legal route applies to your situation. For general legal information about Texas estates, TexasLawHelp.org is a good starting point, and the Harris County Probate Courts publish court information at probate.harriscountytx.gov. For advice about your estate, talk to a Texas attorney.
The title company sets its own requirements and states them in writing to your attorney. We relay and track those requests; what they consist of is a question for the title company and your attorney, not for us.
Our job is keeping that from becoming a last-minute problem. We open title early, get the examiner's requirements list to your attorney at the start rather than the week of closing, and track each item until it clears. Opening title early may surface those requirements sooner.
Selling as-is may be appropriate, and we'll tell you what we think after walking the specific house and running a comparative market analysis.
We walk the house and give you a straight read: which repairs we'd expect to return more than they cost — roof leaks, anything a buyer's inspector is likely to flag — and which look like money spent for the buyer to tear out, such as a new kitchen in a house being bought for the land. In some close-in Houston locations the lot may carry most of the value, which changes what prep is worth doing. Pricing works the same way whether the house is pristine or untouched: we start from what comparable houses actually sold for, adjust for condition, and show you the numbers we used. Whether to spend on prep is your call; our job is making it an informed one.
Dealing with a house like this? Tell us where it is and where things stand. We call back the same day.
Talk to usRather call? (713) 461-5555
We can. Looking after property is the other half of our practice — we have 200+ doors under management in Houston and belong to the National Association of Residential Property Managers.
For a vacant house that means utilities kept on so it shows well, the yard cut, the house checked regularly, and contractors let in and locked up after. Two things worth doing early: ask the insurance carrier how an unoccupied house affects the policy, and stop or forward the mail so it doesn't pile up at the door.
We coordinate a cleanout only on the instructions of whoever your attorney confirms is authorized to give them. We don't decide what happens to anything in the house, and we don't advise on it.
Once we have those instructions, we work with Houston estate-sale and cleanout services and can run the coordination for you, including photographing anything in question so decisions can be made from anywhere. We impose no cleanout deadline of our own, and the house doesn't have to be empty before we list it — a house can be shown with furniture still in it. Questions about timing for legal, insurance, or carrying-cost reasons belong with your attorney, your insurance carrier, and your accountant.
Then you need one local point of contact you can actually reach, and that is the arrangement we set up. Remote coordination may be available: video walk-throughs before decisions, documents signed electronically where the title company allows it, keys and contractor access handled here, and one person answering the phone rather than a rotating cast.
Signing requirements and their timing are determined by the title company, not by us. We'll relay what they require and schedule around anything that has to happen in person.
The listing itself behaves like any other Houston sale: time on market depends on price, condition, and location. That is as specific as an honest answer gets.
What's different about an estate sale is the second track. We follow the closing readiness confirmed by the title company and your attorney, and that timing is theirs, not ours. What we control is our own side of it: prepped, priced, listed, and under contract so the house is ready when they are. For anything on the estate side, your attorney is the right source; the Harris County Probate Courts publish court information at probate.harriscountytx.gov.
Tell us about the house — where it is, what shape it's in, and where things stand with the estate. We'll call you back the same day, and if an attorney is already involved, we're glad to coordinate with them from the first call.
Or call (713) 461-5555. Evan Howell Properties, 9219 Katy Freeway #122, Houston, TX 77024.