Estate sale seller offered me $3,000 off or he'll clear the house. I can't decide which one leaves me worse off

I'll ask the dumb one first. What does broom-clean actually mean in a contract? Is it a defined thing with a standard behind it, or is it just a phrase two people agree on and then argue about at walkthrough?

compass, that was going to be my question too. quill, before either choice, what happens if you show up the morning of closing and there are still mattresses in the back bedroom? Do you close and eat it, delay, or is there money held back? That answer decides the whole thing for me, because "seller will clear it" with no consequence attached is the same as taking it as-is for free.

Take the $3,000. Certain money beats a promise from heirs in another state, and $2,600 against $3,000 means you're already paid for the job.

tally, the $2,600 is for what he can see. Two locked closets and an unwalked crawlspace is exactly where a $2,600 quote becomes $3,800. I'd want those opened before I signed either version.

Manager view: I never take the seller's cleanout promise on a property I'm about to put into service. Not because they lie, plenty of them do try, it's that they're optimizing for done and I'm optimizing for ready. A house cleared by heirs comes to me with the closet rods full of hangers, the fridge unemptied, and a garage of half-used chemicals. Then I'm paying my crew a half day of trim-out work anyway, and the money I saved is gone. If you take the credit, the scope is yours and there's nobody to argue with.

Take the credit, and get a bin on site the day you close. Two things to fix in your numbers first.

One, both your quotes are visible-scope quotes. Ask each of them what the per-yard rate is above the estimated volume and what they charge to handle paint, tires, and a fridge, because those get billed separately at most transfer stations and some won't take them at all. That's the $400 swing between your two bids right there.

Two, if the seller clears it, you have no lien on the quality of the work and no leverage after closing. I've been hired three times to redo an estate clearout after the buyer already owned the house, and every one of those was a $1,400 job that should have been part of the original $2,600.

On the locked closets, ask for them opened at your inspection. If the answer is no, price them as full.

Does the answer change if the credit came as an escrow holdback instead of a price reduction? Then the seller still owes the work and the money is sitting where you can reach it.

$400 of spread for weeks of not being able to schedule anything. I'd take the credit and stop thinking about it.

Watch the paint and the chemicals specifically. Household hazardous waste goes to a separate facility on separate days in a lot of counties, and a crew that finds twelve gallons of old oil paint either charges you to store and haul it or leaves it in the garage. My last estate job had a rusted 55 gallon drum of something nobody could identify, and that one item cost more to deal with than the rest of the basement. Nothing in a $2,600 quote covers that.

I've done it both ways across a small portfolio and the credit has been better every time, with one exception. On a house where the family wanted specific pieces of furniture back, letting them do the removal themselves saved me a fight I couldn't win. They came, took what they wanted, and I cleared the rest. quill, if the heirs still care about anything in there, get that resolved before closing whichever way you go, because a family showing up after you own the house to ask about grandmother's dresser is a bad afternoon.

Pricing note from the crew side. A cleared-then-cleaned estate house and a full one are different jobs, and the second one is usually cheaper per yard because we're not stopping to sort. When heirs pull the good furniture and leave the rest scattered, we lose an hour or two just consolidating. So your $2,600 could actually go up if the seller does a half job first. If you're taking the credit, tell both bidders the house comes to you exactly as they saw it and get the number confirmed on that basis.

cobalt, that's the opposite of what I assumed. So a partially emptied house can cost more than a full one?

Something I'd sell if I were the crew here: closing day service. Bin on site, doors open at 9, house empty by the time the buyer's contractor walks it the next morning. quill, the $400 you're arguing about is nothing next to a week of holding costs, and with REO and estate volume where it is I'd expect more of these to trade as-is with a credit anyway, because that's the shape institutional sellers already use.

lantern is right that as-is with a credit is the institutional default. Bank sellers don't clear houses, they discount and let the buyer deal with it. quill's situation is unusual in that a seller offered to do the work at all.

If you're financing this, ask your lender how they treat the two versions before you choose, because a price reduction and an escrow holdback can hit the appraisal and the funded amount differently, and some lenders won't allow a repair holdback on a purchase at all. Get their answer in writing rather than relying on what the agent thinks. A $3,000 credit that reduces the purchase price also reduces your down payment slightly, which is a small point in favor of it that nobody's mentioned.

Out here the seller clearing a house usually means a burn pile and a truck to the county convenience center, and I'd rather that than pay a crew 38 miles of drive time. Location changes the answer. In a metro with a transfer station 6 miles out, take the credit.

Whichever version you take, put the disposal obligation in writing with a date, and define the standard by what's absent rather than by the word broom-clean, since that term has no fixed meaning and gets litigated on custom. Something like: all personal property, debris, appliances, and floor coverings removed from the interior, garage, crawlspace, and any outbuildings by the date of possession. If you take the as-is credit, you're accepting whatever's in there, and in some states there are notice or storage duties attached to another person's belongings even after you own the building, which varies by state and by how the property came to be vacated, so confirm your local rule with an attorney before your crew starts loading. The two locked closets are the part I'd resolve before signing anything.