Probate Real Estate Secrets: Why Inherited Property Leads Keep Coming in Any Market

Carolynn Castillo (00:00)
The nice thing about the probate business is it’s never gonna stop. It’s not affected by the economy or by, it’s a hot market or it’s a slow market. It don’t matter what kind of market it is, people are dying.

estate professional, what do need to be successful is you need a consistent lead source and ⁓ probate real estate as long as you show up and you work with integrity

Michelle Kesil (01:57)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil. Today I’m joined by someone I’m looking forward to chatting with, Carolynn Castillo, who specialize in probate real estate. So excited to have you here today, Carolynn.

Carolynn Castillo (02:12)
Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure.

Michelle Kesil (02:13)
Awesome, let’s dive in. First off, for those who are not familiar with you and your work yet, can you share what your main focus is?

Carolynn Castillo (02:21)
Yes, I specialize in working with families that inherit property and are looking for how to sell them to the next generation.

Michelle Kesil (02:29)
In which markets do you operate in?

Carolynn Castillo (02:31)
Primarily Florida. I work a lot in South Florida, North Florida, Tampa area, Orlando.

Michelle Kesil (02:38)
Awesome. And so how does the process look like? Do clients come to you with these houses that they need support with? yeah, what does that system look like?

Carolynn Castillo (02:50)
So yes, so we get clients in multiple different ways You know if you think about it ⁓ death is happening all around us all the time It’s something that never stops so in probate Primarily how you know about probate deals is because there’s a court filing and so the court basically puts out a public notice regarding the probate case and then from there, you know, you can get into

touch by phone or mail, reaching out. And if you have an established brand, which is what I’ve been working on, is then you have families just reaching out to you when this part of life has to transition for them.

Michelle Kesil (03:33)
Yeah, and how does it work for the real estate side? Are you selling these houses to specific people? Yeah, just walk me through that journey.

Carolynn Castillo (03:43)
So with inherited properties, think about it, most people that pass away are older, right? So you’re talking about grandma and grandpa’s house that has wallpaper, carpet,

maybe they haven’t really kept up with the times, know, the kitchens are original. So these houses can be well maintained, but really a lot of times what they’re needing is an investor to come in and really kind of rehab these, bring it up to the modern day and then end up reselling it to the market. So I do work with a lot of investors, but some of these houses are in great condition, right? I worked on an estate recently where the late

literally got in a car accident, right? Healthy, young person, no one expected this person to die. She just bought a brand new house about three years ago. So, you know, that house we ended up selling to a regular family that wanted to make that their new home, right? So, the bottom line is that it’s a flow of real estate that’s coming into the market that is basically transitioning hands, you know?

Michelle Kesil (05:33)
Yeah, that’s amazing to be able to help people that need it like that.

Carolynn Castillo (05:38)
Yeah, I really enjoy it.

Michelle Kesil (05:40)
Yeah, and so what does your role look like in terms of working with investors?

Carolynn Castillo (05:46)
Working with investors it’s

Basically like a regular real estate transaction. Everybody has their different values, Some investors are wholesalers or they are buy and hold or fix and flip. So just depending on what the house needs or what the best value is. Something important to know about how I do business is I operate as a neutral party. So I’m not really like

for the investor per se and I’m not necessarily, I’m looking to make the transaction in the best interest of the estate. So sometimes with investor offers, some investors are super low and then some investors are really at fair market value. So I work where my investors do get good deals because houses that are in 1980 is not gonna sell for the top of the market, obviously. But I like to work

with investors where we can offer the family a reasonable fair market offer. And the nice thing about investors is that they’re not in a rush to necessarily close. I’m doing a transaction right now on a probate where it’s a finance buyer and they’re moving in and there’s like a ton of pressure right now because the probate hasn’t gotten officially approved through the court. And but yet, closing’s on Friday and the buyer has a loan and all the things. So it makes people

a lot more stressed, whereas an investor is just cash, we’re ready to close, we’re ready to close. And that’s what I like about working with investors is it’s not a lot of pressure.

yeah, when I work with families with inherited properties, it’s usually not in their best interest to really do renovations to the house, you know, think about it that you’re inheriting this, you didn’t put any blood, sweat or tears into this asset. you’re literally just inheriting it. So when you’re going through probate, you’re typically having to take your funds invested in the house. also remember there’s probably a couple other beneficiaries as

Most estates have three to five people so it’s a little bit different if you were to invest in a property and it’s you and one other partner. So my recommendation to families is really just making the property clean and clear which is trying to remove all the stuff from the house, give it a good deep cleaning and then whatever like eyesores there may be, know, addressing those but pretty much

just selling as is. So it’s the least amount of pocket off for the family. But let’s face it, no house that is in probate or inherited was quote unquote like prepared to be sold. Right? Even the nicest houses I’ve been to, still, you know, somebody has to come back, you know, put the dishes away, put the laundry away. I mean, this is just like just stops for somebody. Right? So our goal in working with the families is to really kind of create a calm to that

chaos and stabilize everything and then just say what are the best options here working with this investor, know, going this route or what would be, you know, the best approach.

Michelle Kesil (09:26)
Right. And what do you feel have been some of the main keys that have allowed your business to be able to grow and run successfully?

Carolynn Castillo (09:34)
I think the main key has just consistency, just everyday showing up for those families, reaching out to them, making our ⁓ resources available to them.

The nice thing about the probate business is it’s never gonna stop. It’s not affected by the economy or by, it’s a hot market or it’s a slow market. It don’t matter what kind of market it is, people are dying.

estate professional, what do need to be successful is you need a consistent lead source and ⁓ probate real estate as long as you show up and you work with integrity and

you just ⁓ you’ll have a long I believe a long career in this business so I’m enjoying it.

Michelle Kesil (10:15)
Yeah, amazing. And so what are you most focused on solving or scaling to next?

Carolynn Castillo (10:22)
⁓ what I’m doing now is, actually working with real estate professionals, around the country on teaching them how to do, this same business in their, cities and states. so I’ve been, ⁓ working to really help bring awareness because a lot of people don’t understand, ⁓ all the moving parts of inherited property, what the families go through, what are the problems that they have to address when they go into an inheritance

situation and by becoming that resource and by becoming that solution, it creates opportunity in all of our marketplaces because probate real estate is happening literally globally, not in one city or state. So if you’re in real estate and

you know, you want consistently sourced. That’s why I enjoy working with ⁓ investors and realtors and just helping them develop this in their marketplaces. So that’s my current next venture.

Michelle Kesil (11:19)
Yeah, can you expand on that?

Carolynn Castillo (11:21)
⁓ I’m working with the individuals. Yeah. So I have, I have a coaching program, ⁓ where I actually share my exact process, ⁓ from cold call all the way down to closing, how we work with the attorneys, how we work with the multiple beneficiaries, how we prepare houses for sale, and really establishing a lead, ⁓ a sales process that you can literally just kind of like plug and play.

Michelle Kesil (11:24)
Yeah.

Carolynn Castillo (11:48)
So I’ve actually done hundreds of inherited home sales and I’m still doing, I’m still in production. I’m still helping families every single day. And I can tell you I have.

I learn something new every day. Probate is very tangled. It can be very complicated. But that’s my goal is to help transfer that knowledge that I’ve acquired from the school of hard knocks. And now I can help others to have a more straight path to success in this business.

Michelle Kesil (12:22)
Yeah, amazing. Is there a certain educational background that people need to get before getting into this?

Carolynn Castillo (12:32)
No, actually that’s the nice thing about probate is no, you don’t. mean, they do have certifications out there that you can take, but I’m really a believer in the real world experience because I can sit on a seminar and take a class, you know, and get a badge. But I’d rather see you in the field, making contact, having conversations. And as long as you’re willing to learn,

to communicate and learning how to reach out and be that solution, right? I think that anybody can start in it if they just have the right heart and willing to, you know, give it the Girl Scout Go is what I call it.

Michelle Kesil (13:14)
Definitely. What are you most excited about as far as opportunities or goals you have for this year?

Carolynn Castillo (14:03)
For this year in particular, I’ve been really going partnering up with realtors around the country. It is a of a tough market, you may say, for all of us out here. There’s just not a lot of transacting that’s happening nationwide. And so we’re really seeing kind of a splitting of the seas, know, people that are doing super successful right now, and then people that are just completely

dropping out of the business, you know, and really rallying, you know, not only for myself and being part of that movement that’s having the best year ever, but also joining with realtors and us kind of to the races, to the mountaintops, because it is tough. The market’s been tough since about 2024 and we’re still not out of it. You know, we’re still in a war and the interest rates are as high as possible and

you know, so I think there’s still more pain to come. But, you know, we have to be resilient, keep pushing forward. And, you like I said, for probate, it’s amazing because we’re not affected by the economy. Now, when you go out to sell it, investors, what are they offering on these properties lower than what they used to? Right. People are not selling their houses very fast. Like you put a house for sale, you have to wait, you know, 90 days to find a buyer.

So, know, really learning how to maneuver through these tougher markets right now and just believing that, you know, 2027, okay, is going to be the year of amazingness.

Michelle Kesil (15:35)
Yeah, amazing. What has been one of the biggest obstacles or challenges that you’ve had to overcome in this career?

Carolynn Castillo (15:43)
The biggest one is just learning everything. Learning everything deal by deal, situation by situation. In probate, there’s so many situations. There’s so many dynamics between the law, the attorney, the heirs, the title company.

So it’s just a lot sometimes and you just take it deal by deal, you know, and that’s why now it’s, I’m in a position where I can.

share with others so without them having to fall into these problems they can actually address them in advance. But yeah it has been tough you know being on deals where hey we’re not going to close because the court order because the beneficiary doesn’t want to sign because we can’t find that person because so all the failure you know it’s like it’s actually preparing you for how to find the yellow brick road and how to do things

like super clean from the beginning so that we don’t have to go through all that stuff on

the back end. So it’s, you know, I’ve definitely gotten plenty of beat up and plenty of deals

here. But all of that has ultimately led for my clients having better transactional experiences and then also being able to share it with other realtors and investors.

Michelle Kesil (17:03)
Yeah, definitely. Is there, like how do you manage the emotional component of like the hardships that people go through?

Carolynn Castillo (17:10)
you know.

It’s actually funny, you would think that it’d be more emotional than it actually is, but a lot of times when people are filing probate and they’ve actually already made, kind of, they’ve already passed the, not to say they passed the grieving, but they had the funeral before people pass away normally, unless it’s like the car accident or something like that. normally if your grandma’s in hospice or like, you kind of are leading up to what’s about to happen.

and then you do have the funeral and then you do all that and then you go out and hire an attorney, you know, now you’re kind of more in a position of like ready to take care of business. But I do think a high level, you know, having empathy definitely does pay dividends in this business, you know, just kind of.

Being able to come down to the level where people are at in that season, you know, I think does say a lot because when you’re dealing with multiple beneficiaries, sometimes tensions are high, you know, they’re not happy, brothers and sisters are fighting, you know, so really being able to be that neutral third party that just kind of helps everybody move forward is.

where your skill set of handling emotions and stuff will come in.

Michelle Kesil (18:27)
Yeah, absolutely. Is networking a big component of this role and finding people to collaborate with?

Carolynn Castillo (18:34)
Yeah, networking is amazing. I love networking as a probate real estate professional because it really sets me apart in the room. know, think about any networking event you go to, there’s probably like a hundred realtors there, you know? But when you really enter the room as, you know, a probate specialist or someone that works with families that inherit property, when they pass away, you really get people’s attention.

and you get people thinking about, yeah, that just happened to my

grandma, and yeah, this, you you start to see where, this is actually happening throughout our communities, you know, and you can definitely connect with people, you know, think about it, you know, funeral homes or, you know, there’s business to business connections between attorneys.

A lot of things, I actually run a local networking group and the ⁓ whole emphasis around the group was centered around the death care industry.

And what people don’t always realize is that there’s a whole business behind the death business. And when somebody passes away, they have to get a funeral. have a life insurance policy. They have 401ks. They have attorneys, real estate professionals. They have to do taxes. There’s this whole like…

business, you know, and so the more that we are connected with the with the professionals that are servicing that stage of life I think is a good opportunity for all of us

Michelle Kesil (20:07)
Absolutely. Well before we begin to wrap up here, if someone wants to reach out connect learn more where can people find you?

Carolynn Castillo (20:14)
Yeah, definitely. You can check me out on YouTube is my favorite place, which is Absolute Top Dollar. And you can always check out our website to absolutetopdollar.com. And also, that would be great. Yeah, they could check me out on YouTube. We can become friends.

Michelle Kesil (20:30)
Perfect, we’ll appreciate your time and your story. Thank you for being here.

Carolynn Castillo (20:34)
Thank you so much.

Michelle Kesil (20:35)
And for those tuning in, if you got value, make sure you’ve subscribed. We’ve got more conversations with operators like Carolynn who are building real businesses and we will see you all on our next episode.