No comp within four miles of this probate deal

On the acreage question, in most rural markets the first acre or two carries most of the value because it's what the house sits on, and additional acres are worth progressively less unless they're tillable, fenced, or have road frontage that could split off. 4.2 acres nine miles out is probably yard and trees. I wouldn't assign it a separate 15.

What I'd do instead is stop trying to split house from land and find sales of the whole thing. Widen your search to the three or four adjacent counties with similar population density rather than staying inside township lines. Township lines are an administrative accident and buyers out there don't care about them.

The curling three-tab versus newer metal roof on your one comp is worth more than you're crediting. Metal roof on a rural farmhouse is a selling feature to the exact buyer you'd be reselling to, someone who doesn't want to think about the roof for thirty years.

The line I'd sit with is "she never has to think about it again." That's not a price, it's a condition, and you can sometimes satisfy it for less money than 60 by taking things off her plate. She's paying utilities, she's six hours away, she's worried about pipes. If part of your offer is that you take over utilities on day one and handle the winterizing, that has real value to her that costs you a couple hundred.

I'd also ask what she thinks it's worth versus what she needs. Those are different numbers in most people's heads and 60 might be the second one.

How did you decide 25 for renovation from photos? I'm asking because I'd have no idea and I want to know what people actually do. Is there a per-square-foot rule for a cosmetic refresh on something like this, or is it purely line by line?

@quill from what I've watched people do, per square foot rules are how you get in trouble on rural houses, because the variable isn't finishes, it's mechanical systems. A 1,900 foot house where the well pump is fine and the septic passes is a different budget from the identical house where both need replacing, and no square foot number captures that.

@hollow the thing I'd want before anything else is somebody local who can walk it. Not an inspector necessarily, a contractor or a handyman who works in that county and knows what wells cost out there. You're six hours from being able to do that yourself and eleven phone photos is not a substitute.

On the no-comps problem, ask a local agent. Seriously. In a county of 9,000 there are probably three agents who do most of the volume and one of them has personally sold half the houses within twenty miles over the last decade. They'll know what the 94 sale actually was, whether it sat, whether there was seller financing, whether the buyer was a relative. That's information you cannot get from the record, especially since some states don't put sale prices in public records at all, so depending where you are the MLS or the agent may be your only route to a number.

They'll also tell you honestly whether a fixed up farmhouse nine miles out sells or lingers, because they've watched it happen.

Have you considered that this might be a rental rather than a flip? Nine miles out, three bedroom, 4.2 acres, in a county where inventory is nothing. Somebody out there wants to rent a house with land for a horse or a shop. Rents are low but so is your basis at 60.

I manage a couple of things at that end of the market and the tenant profile is different, longer tenancies, more DIY, more tolerance for a dated kitchen if the well works and the heat works. It changes what you have to fix. You don't need a 1970s kitchen replaced to rent it, you need it clean and functional.

It also changes the exit problem entirely, because you're not selling into a six month DOM market, you're collecting rent while you wait for whenever you do want to sell.

Let me put @rena-expert's numbers next to @trellis's idea, because they point in different directions and @hollow should see the split.

Flip: 60 in, 35 renovation, 6 closing and commission, call it 4 carry over six months. 105 all in against a mid-80s resale. That's negative and it's negative before anything goes wrong.

Rental: 60 in, maybe 15 to make it habitable and safe, 75 all in. If it rents for 900 in that market, gross yield is 14.4 percent, and after taxes, insurance, and a real repair reserve on a house with an end of life roof you're probably netting 500 to 550 a month. That's 8 to 8.8 percent on 75 unleveraged with no appreciation assumption. Not spectacular, defensible.

The flip math is the one that kills the deal, and it dies on the resale number, which nobody in this thread can verify. So the question for @hollow is whether he wants a rural rental at all, because that's the only version of this that clears.

@ledger's split is right and I want to name the thing that decides it, because it isn't the numbers.

@hollow, you said this is your first live one and you'd rather move slow and lose it. Fine. But the roof is the hinge on both versions and you haven't priced it. End of life three-tab on a 1,900 foot farmhouse is not a small line item, and on the rental version it's the difference between 15 of work and 30, because you cannot rent a house under a roof that's going to leak into the ceiling you just painted. There's already water staining under a bathroom, so either that bath has a supply or drain problem or the roof is already in.

Here's the sequence I'd actually run, in order:

1. Get the letters and ask her attorney in writing what's outstanding. If the estate can't convey for four months, everything else is academic and you have four months to do it properly. If it can convey in three weeks, you know she's serious and so is the timeline.
2. Pay somebody local, 300 to 500, to walk the house with you on the phone. Roof, well, septic, panel, the stain. That's the whole list.
3. Get the county health department's septic requirements before you're under contract, because in some counties a transfer or a permit triggers an inspection, and that varies by state and county so you have to ask them directly rather than assume.
4. Only then put a number on the table.

On price, if she says 60 and won't move, you don't have to counter. You can say yes contingent on inspection and keep the right to walk, and use the three weeks to find out whether 60 is 60 or whether it's 60 plus a septic. She wants to stop thinking about it, and a signed contract with a real closing date accomplishes that for her even if you're still doing homework.

What I would not do is send her a number based on eleven photos. You'd be pricing your own ignorance and she'd be accepting it, and then you're the guy who retrades a grieving niece two weeks later, which is worse for you in a county of 9,000 than losing the deal. Everybody there will know.

The reputation point @wren makes at the end is the whole thing in a small county. My crew works a couple of markets that size and the first question anyone asks about a stranger is who else has dealt with him. You retrade once out there and you don't get calls anymore.

Which argues for the inspection contingency being real and explained to her up front, in plain words, so a price change later isn't a surprise. Tell her: I'll sign at 60, I'm having someone look at the well and the septic, if those are bad I'll come back to you with a number and you can say no. People take that fine. What they hate is the ambush.

Where's the 60 coming from, on your side? You haven't said what money you're using. If it's cash you have, the rental version at 75 all in is a thing you can just do. If you're borrowing at rural-property rates on a house with an unknown septic, a lot of lenders won't touch it, and the ones who will price it in a way that changes @ledger's 8 percent to something less interesting. Worth knowing before you're under contract, and confirm the terms in writing rather than on a call.

@trellis, honest question about the rental idea. Who manages it? @hollow is presumably not nine miles outside a town of a few thousand. Is there a management company operating out there at all, or does that mean finding one guy who'll collect rent and fix a water heater for a cut?

Because that's the part that makes rural rentals hard from a distance, and it doesn't show up in the yield math @ledger ran.

Adding to @sable, the appraisal is its own problem on the debt side. If you ever want to refinance out of this into a longer term loan, the appraiser faces the same comp desert @hollow does, and appraisals in thin rural markets come in low and slow, sometimes with the acreage handled inconsistently. That's a real constraint on the rental plan if the plan involves refinancing to get cash back out. Ask any lender you're considering how they handle appraisals in counties with few sales, before you commit.

The 4.2 acres deserves one more look before you write it off as yard. Check whether the parcel can be split under county zoning and whether it has enough road frontage for a second driveway and a separate septic field. In some rural counties minimum lot size is one or two acres and a 4.2 acre parcel with frontage can become a house lot plus a buildable lot. That's a different deal.

It might be nothing. Zoning and subdivision rules vary by county and state, and the only way to know is the county planning office and the specific parcel. But you're already going to be talking to the health department about septic, so ask the planning desk while you're there. Twenty minutes.

If it does split, the house being worth 84 stops being the ceiling on the whole thing.

I want to be careful with @parcel's point because I've seen it used to justify prices. A split possibility is worth something only if there's demand for the resulting lot. In a county of 9,000 with nothing on the market within eleven miles, the reason nothing's on the market might be that nobody's buying, in which case a buildable lot is an asset with no bid. Check how many new residential permits that county issued in the last three years. If it's under ten a year, the split is a lottery ticket, not value.

On the main question, I'd frame it as @ledger did but tighter. The flip fails. The rental works at a basis of 75 and fails at 95. Everything between now and a signed contract exists to find out which side of that line the septic and the roof put you on. That's two phone calls and one site visit, and you have three weeks, which is exactly enough.

Get the letters testamentary or letters of administration and read them yourself, don't take the attorney's summary. What I'd be looking for: whether the personal representative has independent authority to sell real property or whether the letters are restricted, and whether there's anything in the file about bond. Also ask whether the creditor claim period has run, because a sale that closes while claims can still come in is a different closing than one that happens after.

All of this is governed by state statute and the specific court's practice, so an attorney in that state has to be the one who tells you what applies. My point is just that "it's almost done" is a sentence with a lot of room in it, and the paperwork is short enough to read in fifteen minutes.

I want income without a second job, and the rental version of this deal is a second job. Rural, distant, one local handyman, a well and a septic, a roof at end of life, a tenant who does their own repairs until they don't. @lantern already asked who manages it and nobody's answered.

Not saying don't. Saying if @hollow's goal is the same as mine, this specific house is the hard way to get there.

@marlow's right that it's work, but I'd separate the deal from the strategy. @hollow said this is the first live one out of a letter campaign, and the value in it might be learning to run the process cleanly even if the answer at the end is no. Getting the letters, calling the health department, walking it with a local contractor, telling her honestly what you found. That's the whole skill and it costs a few hundred dollars to practice.

The boring outcome here is you do all that and pass, and the next call goes faster.

One thing nobody's said: 4.2 acres and a farmhouse nine miles out has an exit that isn't retail or rental. There are buyers in every rural county who want exactly that and pay cash, and they're not searching listing sites, they're hearing about it from a neighbor. Half the rural stuff I've watched trade in markets like that never hit the MLS.

Which means the six month DOM number @hollow heard might be measuring the wrong thing. It measures houses that were listed. It doesn't measure the ones that sold in a week to the guy whose brother-in-law wanted a shop and some land.

Doesn't rescue the flip math @ledger ran, 105 all in against mid-80s is still bad. But if the real question is whether he can get out of this at 75 in a reasonable time, I think the answer out there is better than the DOM figure suggests, and that makes the rental version less scary because the downside exit exists. Ask the local agent @halyard mentioned who buys the acreage houses and how they find them.