The call I get more than almost any other goes something like this — someone's parent passed, there's a shore home in the mix, and the family is already disagreeing about what to do with it before the estate is even settled.
That's the starting point for a lot of these conversations. Not a clean hand-off. Not a motivated seller who had three months to prepare. A cottage that hasn't been touched since 2008, three adult kids with different financial situations, and a probate timeline that nobody fully understands yet.
I want to walk through what the private sale path actually looks like for inherited shore property in NJ — specifically the barrier island towns — because the MLS path isn't the only option, and for some families it's genuinely the wrong one.
The Stepped-Up Basis Thing Is Real and Most Families Don't Use It Right
When you inherit property, the tax basis resets to fair market value at the date of death. Not what your father paid for it in 1979. Not what it was worth when he put it in a trust. What it was worth when he died.
That matters enormously on the shore.
A property bought for $180,000 in 1985 that appraises today at $1.4 million means the estate — and the inheriting heirs — have a basis of $1.4 million. If the family sells it for $1.4 million, the capital gains exposure is essentially zero. If they sit on it for two years, rent it out, make improvements, and then sell it for $1.55 million, they're only recognizing gains on the delta above the stepped-up basis.
Owners in that situation almost always benefit from moving on a private sale relatively quickly after letters testamentary are issued. Not because of any rush — because the math is cleanest right at that reset point.
Here's the part I have to be honest about, though: the stepped-up basis doesn't always favor a fast exit. If the estate has liquidity, if the heirs can carry the property, and if the market in that specific block is poised to appreciate, waiting can still make sense. The basis advantage doesn't evaporate. I'm not going to tell you urgency is always the right call. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn't.
Talk to a CPA before you move on this. A good estate attorney too. We're not tax advisors.
Sibling Coordination Is the Actual Hard Part
The tax basis is solvable. Probate has a timeline you can plan around. Siblings are the variable nobody can fully predict.
This question comes up constantly: one heir needs cash, one heir wants to hold, one heir has emotional attachment to the property, and one heir lives in Seattle and just wants it resolved. Those four people have to reach consensus to sell. In a standard MLS listing, that tension plays out in front of the market — extended days on market, price reductions, buyers sensing hesitation.
A private sale can absorb that coordination time without public exposure.
(This is especially true on the island towns where everyone knows everyone, and a listing that sits for 60 days starts generating its own narrative.)
The other thing that comes up in estates with multiple heirs: partition actions. If the family genuinely cannot agree, any heir can file for partition, which forces a court-supervised sale. That process is slow, expensive, and produces worse outcomes than almost any negotiated path. I've seen it happen with a property on 96th in Stone Harbor — three heirs, could not align, partition filed, resolved 14 months later at a price that frustrated everyone. Nobody won that one.
A private sale opens a negotiation before you're forced into one.
The executor has real authority here. Under NJ estate law, if the will grants the executor power to sell real property — and most modern wills do — the executor can move on a private sale without unanimous heir consent in many circumstances. That's a detail worth confirming with your probate attorney, but it's not uncommon.
What the Private Sale Path Actually Looks Like
Let me be concrete about the mechanics because the phrase "private sale" gets used loosely.
For an inherited shore home, a private sale typically means one of three things: a direct developer offer, a sale to an existing buyer through an attorney-only transaction, or a sale through a buyer who was identified off-market through a broker relationship but where the property never formally hit the MLS.
Developer offers are the most common path we see for older structures on the island. If you've inherited a 1960s ranch on a 5,000-square-foot lot in Avalon or Stone Harbor, the land is the asset. The structure is not. A developer will underwrite the lot, not the house, and an offer will reflect what that lot supports in terms of a new build.
The gap between a retail buyer offer and a developer offer is something families consistently underestimate. We've written about why that spread exists and why it's sometimes larger than families expect.
One thing executors often don't realize: you can request offers from multiple developers simultaneously. There's no exclusivity unless you sign one. Getting two or three offers before you negotiate is just good process.
For the property to close outside of probate, the estate typically needs to have received letters testamentary (or letters of administration), the executor needs authority to sell, and any required heir consents need to be documented. Your attorney handles that paperwork. The buyer — particularly a developer buyer — is accustomed to that process and has done it before.
Timeline from letters testamentary to close on a private developer sale is usually 45–90 days depending on title and the estate's complexity. That's faster than most people expect. It's also not instant. Plan accordingly.
One honest note on condition: inherited shore homes often have deferred maintenance, dated systems, and sometimes unpermitted work from decades of incremental improvement. The hidden cost curve of shore homes is real, and a developer will price that in. A retail buyer will too — and may use it as leverage post-inspection in ways that create friction late in a deal. Developer offers are typically made with awareness of condition baked in. That's part of why the process moves faster.
The MLS Isn't Wrong. It's Just Not the Only Path.
I want to be clear that I'm not telling anyone to avoid listing with an agent. A strong agent who knows the shore market can absolutely produce competitive results on an inherited property.
The private sale path exists because some families have circumstances where the MLS creates problems it doesn't have to. Sibling conflict. Estate complexity. A structure that's functionally a teardown. A family that simply wants the process resolved without a six-week marketing campaign and a parade of open-house walkers asking questions about the boiler.
Older shore homes vs. new construction is a genuine value question that buyers wrestle with too — and it informs what kind of buyer actually exists for a particular inherited property. If your property is a 1965 three-bed on a full lot in Stone Harbor, the realistic buyer pool skews heavily toward developers or buyers with immediate renovation intent. That shapes who you should actually be talking to.
The family I think about when I'm writing this is one where the dad passed in October, the house has been sitting on 50th since Thanksgiving, nobody's winterized it properly, one sibling is making mortgage payments out of pocket, and they still haven't agreed on a price. That house is sitting. The market doesn't wait.
What is that delay actually costing you in carrying costs, exposure risk, and family friction before someone finally picks up the phone?
If you're an executor or an heir working through a shore property and you want to understand what a private sale would look like for your specific situation, reach out to us directly. No pitch. Just a conversation.