Plain-English guides to selling a house in New Jersey

Attorney review, the title search, the smoke certificate and the money. Everything between a signed contract and the keys changing hands.

You can sell with tenants in place. What you can't do is promise the buyer an empty house, and New Jersey is stricter about that than almost anywhere.

On a house in good shape, listing usually nets more. Here's the honest line-by-line, including the NJ transfer fee change most sellers still get wrong.

The loan doesn't disappear when the borrower does. But federal law stops the lender demanding it all back at once, and most heirs never hear that.

Most people think they have to wait for probate to finish. You don't. Here's what actually has to happen first, in order.

A tax sale certificate is a lien, not a deed. You still own the house, you can still sell it, and the lien gets paid off at closing like any other.

No law says you need an agent. There is one professional New Jersey really does expect you to have, and it isn't the one most people assume.

It depends entirely on whether the house is still in the estate or already in the heirs' names. Two very different answers.

New Jersey is a judicial foreclosure state, which means it's slower than most people fear. Here's every stage and what it means for your options.

Every real cash offer is built backward from the same handful of numbers. Here they are, including the one nobody mentions.

You own the house until the sheriff's sale, and you can sell right up to it. The catch is timing, not permission.