Real estate investors have a lot of ways from which to purchase the properties they want to invest in. Home flippers, in particular, who are on the lookout for properties priced lower than their real market value can turn to a less known source of profitable purchases known as estate sales. Resourcefulness and perseverance are key to achieving success in this endeavor.

    By definition, an estate sale is a type of auction, garage or yard sale aimed at disposing of most possessions including real estate properties owned by a person who has passed away or will be moving to another home or place. In this case, the heirs might no longer be interested in keeping the property or it can also be that the deceased left huge debts which need to paid through the proceeds of the property's sale. This type of sale is also referred to as a probate property bargain decided by a local court six months or longer after the owner's death.

      An estate executor or administrator normally conducts the estate sale as survivors may find it difficult to handle such a huge sale and feel very sentimental to dispose of some priced belongings and property. In the event the survivors fail to agree on how to dispose of a property, a court may order the sale through an estate sale with the proceeds to be divided among the survivors.

    In the U.S., some six million probate court proceedings take place each year although not all involve real property. Some states, meanwhile, don't require court proceedings for small estates valued below $100,000.
Investors looking for a home to resell for a profit can look for probate sales where they can get great bargains for real properties. There are other advantages to this. One is that the heirs are usually motivated to sell the property to pay the bills left by the deceased and distribute the cash to the heirs. Secondly, there's limited competition from other buyers therefore, it's possible to get bargain price. Thirdly, many heirs don't demand a high price because what they're after is just to dispose of the property as soon as they can.

    So if you're interested to try this out, there are several ways to acquire such probate properties. You can buy directly from the estate executor at a discount or you can buy from the heirs themselves after they get their respective property. Some heirs prefer to have cash notably if location is a major consideration so they will opt to sell the property. Another way is to buy from a probate-property court sale normally done with a real estate agent. Lastly, public auctions notably with few bidders are a good place to buy large probate properties like farms.

    Here's a tip: if you see estate or garage sales listed in your local paper, you may visit the place and ask the owners if the real estate is also for up for sale. In garage sales, although only about 20 percent of people holding this type of sale are actually just planning to move to a new home and it won't hurt to ask if their current home is also being sold. This way, you stand out from the competition.