COLUMBUS, Ohio, USA — October 8, 2026 — A family home can feel like the kind of inheritance that should stay in the family.
In practice, it often does not.
Among Americans who have inherited real estate, 56% sold the property, according to a 2026 survey of 1,000 adults by Trust & Will. Among people expecting to inherit real estate in the future, only 35% said they plan to sell.
That 21 percentage point gap points to something families do not always anticipate when making an estate plan.
Parents may think they are leaving their children a home.
Their children may inherit a financial decision.
A house can carry decades of memories, but it also comes with property taxes, insurance, maintenance, utilities and sometimes a mortgage. When several siblings inherit the same property, those costs arrive alongside another question: What if they do not all want the same thing?
"Parents often look at the family home and see something they spent decades building and preserving," said Samantha Halvorson, chief executive of LegacyGuard Estate Planning. "Their children can love that home just as much and still reach the conclusion that keeping it does not make financial or practical sense."
The difference between expectation and reality is especially notable as real estate becomes a larger part of inheritance conversations.
The Trust & Will survey included 500 Americans who had received an inheritance during the previous 20 years and 500 who expect to receive one during the next 20 years. Overall, 38% said real estate was or would be part of their inheritance.
Among inherited real estate, 72% included a primary residence.
Future heirs were considerably more optimistic about keeping those properties.
Thirty six percent of those expecting to inherit real estate said they planned to rent it out. Among people who had already inherited property, only 17% actually became landlords.
Another 35% of future heirs said they planned to keep the inherited property as their primary residence.
The experience of past heirs looked different. Thirty percent sold the property after owning it for at least a year and another 26% sold within the first year.
The house that parents imagine remaining in the family can become the asset their children decide makes the most sense to sell.
Money is one reason.
Unlike cash in a bank account, an inherited house can begin creating expenses immediately.
Property taxes continue. Insurance remains necessary. A roof does not wait for an estate to be settled before it starts leaking. Heating, electricity, lawn care and routine maintenance continue even when nobody is living in the home.
If there is a mortgage on the inherited house, that adds another layer.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau advises people who inherit a mortgaged home to contact the mortgage servicer and establish their right to the property. Documentation may be required before the heir can receive information about the loan and determine how payments will continue.
For an heir who wants to keep the property, the question may be less about how much the house is worth and more about whether owning it fits into the life and finances the heir already has.
A valuable inheritance can still be expensive to keep.
Then there are siblings.
Leaving a house equally to three children can sound straightforward when an estate plan is being written.
Once the house becomes theirs, equal ownership does not necessarily produce an equal desire to keep it.
One child may live nearby and want to move in. Another might live across the country. The third may need the money from an inheritance for a home of their own, retirement or other financial priorities.
Cash can be divided into thirds.
A house cannot.
"You do not need a family feud for this to become difficult," Halvorson said. "Three children can get along perfectly well and still have three completely different financial situations and three different ideas about what should happen to the property."
If one sibling wants to keep an inherited house while the others want their share, that sibling may need enough money or financing to buy out the others.
If the siblings decide to keep and rent the house, they have effectively become joint property owners. Someone has to oversee repairs, tenants, insurance, taxes and expenses.
If they cannot find an arrangement that works for everyone, selling the inherited house may become the simplest solution.
That helps explain why what future heirs expect to do with inherited property differs so sharply from what past heirs actually did.
The ownership structure before the parent passes can matter too.
A house that becomes part of a probate estate may have to move through the probate process before ownership can be fully settled. Probate requirements vary by state and by the circumstances of the estate.
Other homes may transfer differently because of joint ownership, state specific transfer arrangements or estate planning through a revocable living trust.
Putting a house in a living trust can allow the property to be administered according to the terms of the trust rather than passing through probate, provided the property was properly transferred into the trust and applicable legal requirements were followed.
That last part can be easy to overlook.
Creating a living trust does not automatically put a house in the trust.
The property generally must be properly transferred and titled. A trust that exists on paper while the home remains outside it may not accomplish what the homeowner expected.
For homeowners thinking about avoiding probate, that makes trust funding and property ownership just as important as the trust document itself.
It also illustrates why estate planning for homeowners can become more complicated than writing down the names of the people who should inherit the property.
The way the house transfers and what happens after it transfers are separate questions.
Halvorson said those conversations sometimes expose a gap between a parent's intention and the practical situation children will face later.
"A parent might say, 'I want the house to go equally to my children,' and that answers who receives it," she said. "It does not answer whether they should sell it, whether one child should have the opportunity to keep it or what happens if they all want something different."
Those questions could become more common.
Among people expecting to receive an inheritance during the next 20 years, 44% believe real estate will be included, according to the Trust & Will survey. Among people who had already received an inheritance during the previous 20 years, 32% said real estate was part of it.
The survey does not establish exactly how future inheritance patterns will unfold, but it suggests that a substantial number of families expect property to be part of the wealth passed from one generation to the next.
Many are doing so without an estate plan.
Thirty one percent of respondents in the survey said they had neither a will nor a trust. That included 30% of people who had already been through an inheritance themselves.
For LegacyGuard Estate Planning, which works with a nationwide network of attorneys, inherited homes have become a useful example of why estate planning can extend beyond deciding who gets an asset.
The larger question is what receiving that asset will require.
A home can be one of the largest pieces of an estate. It can also be one of the hardest to divide.
That makes conversations about a family home different from conversations about many other assets.
A bank account has a balance.
A house has a roof, a tax bill, an insurance policy, a location, a history and sometimes several new owners.
Parents may spend years thinking about who should inherit it.
Their children may ultimately have to decide whether they can afford to keep it.
(LegacyGuard Estate Planning operates a nationwide firm connecting families across all 50 states with independent, licensed attorneys who prepare personalized living trusts. The company combines technology, education, and legal expertise to make estate planning accessible and affordable for everyday American families. More information is available at https://LegacyGuardEP.com.)
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