Every agent has a fixer upper listing that refuses to cooperate.
Good location, bad bones. Or good bones, bad tenant. Or an estate where the house is fine but nobody can agree on anything and the family just wants to be done. The retail buyer pool doesn’t know what to do with it, the buyer’s lenders get nervous, and your listing photos are doing their best with a kitchen from another decade.
These are the listings I want. Here’s how to sell a fixer upper listing to an investor like me, broken down by type.
1. Estate listings
Inherited property is a huge slice of the South Carolina market, and it’s one of my favorite types to buy.
Why they stall: the house is often full of belongings. It’s been lived in by one person for decades. Repairs were put off. Heirs live out of state. The personal representative wants it done but also wants to be fair to everyone.
What I look for: solid structure, a neighborhood where finished houses sell or rent, and a clear path to authority to sign. I don’t care about the clutter.
What helps me move fast: - Who the personal representative is and confirmation they can sign - Where the estate is in probate - The estate attorney’s contact (with your seller’s permission) - Whether all heirs are aligned on selling
How I handle it: patiently. Families grieving don’t need investor pressure. I’ll give your seller as much time as the estate needs and work on the attorney’s timeline. As-is means they can leave anything they don’t want.
If you want to understand how investors think about estates more broadly, the probate investing guide explains it.
2. As-is listings with deferred maintenance
Why they stall: inspection reports scare retail buyers, and some loan programs won’t finance a house with significant condition problems. Roof at end of life, water in the crawlspace, original electrical, failing HVAC, soft floors.
What I look for: a known scope. I walk a house with a repair sheet, system by system: roof, foundation, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, then cosmetics. If I can put a realistic range on the work and the finished house fits the neighborhood, I’m interested. If the scope is wide open, I need more time and more access.
What helps: any prior inspection reports, contractor quotes, and an honest disclosure. Lead with the hard part. I’ll find it anyway, and finding it early is how I avoid renegotiating later.
There’s a deeper explanation of how investors estimate repairs at the rehab estimating guide, if you want to see how I’m thinking about your listing.
3. Tenant-occupied listings
Why they stall: most owner-occupant buyers don’t want to inherit a tenant, deal with lease terms or wait for a move-out. Showings are harder. Photos are harder.
What I look for: a property I’d be glad to hold as a rental, or one I can renovate once the lease runs its course. Paying tenants are a bonus. Non-paying tenants aren’t a deal-killer, but I need to know.
What helps: - Copies of leases, or a summary if there’s no written lease - Rent amounts and payment history (shared privately, never published) - Security deposits held and who holds them - Who pays which utilities - Any notices given or pending issues
I treat tenants with respect during showings and after closing. That matters to your seller and it matters to me.
4. Small multifamily: duplex to quad
Why they stall: small multifamily falls in a gap. Too big for many first-time buyers, too small for institutional money. Mixed condition across units, a mix of lease types, and deferred maintenance on the shared systems.
What I look for: two to four units in the Midlands or my secondary markets, with a path to stable occupancy. Side-by-side duplexes, converted older houses, small brick buildings. I’ve worked a small multifamily renovation in Greenwood and I want more of these.
What helps: a rent roll, the leases, utility setup (separately metered or not), and the age of roofs and HVAC per unit. If you want the investor’s view on these properties, I wrote it up at multifamily.benlovro.com.
5. Land and land + mobile home listings
Why they stall: land buyers need different due diligence than house buyers, and many retail buyers don’t know how to evaluate it. Land with a mobile home is even harder; financing is tricky and the title situation on the home itself can be confusing.
What I look for: legal access, a realistic septic path, utilities at or near the road, flood zone status, and clean title. For land + mobile home, I care more about the land, the well and septic, and how the home is documented than about the home’s finishes.
What helps: survey or plat, any perc or septic records, the parcel number, and for mobile homes, whatever title or paperwork exists on the home. The land and mobile home guide covers what I check on these.
Where these listings need to be
I stay close to home. If your listing is within roughly an hour of Lexington, whether that’s a mill house in Columbia, a ranch in Cayce, a rural tract near Pelion or a duplex in Greenwood, send it. I also buy in Sumter, Lancaster, Rock Hill and parts of the Upstate. Every town I cover is listed on my buy box.
How I evaluate your listing
Here’s the order, so you know what I’m doing while you wait.
- Fit. Type and location.
- Exit. Renovate and sell, renovate and rent, hold, or sell land.
- Comps. Sold properties nearby, recent, similar size, same school zone where it matters.
- Repairs. System by system, plus a contingency.
- Risk check. Title, flood, septic, access, tenants.
- Offer. Only after the paper says yes.
Let the paper make the decision. That’s how my offers stay steady from contract to closing.
Pricing a fixer upper when an investor is the likely buyer
You know pricing better than I do, so I’ll say just one thing. An investor’s offer starts from what the property will be worth once it’s fixed, then subtracts the repairs, the holding and selling costs, and a margin for the risk. So the more clearly the condition is documented, the less risk the buyer has to price in. Good disclosures, prior inspections and contractor quotes don’t just protect your seller. They can make an investor more comfortable.
Your next step
If you’ve got one of these five listings in my area, send it through the agent deal form at benlovro.com. Include the MLS number, the disclosures, occupancy info and the hard part.
New to working with me? Start at the agent overview page or check the agent FAQ.
Questions people ask
Should I list a fixer upper on the MLS or bring it to investors first?
That’s a decision for you and your seller. Some sellers want full market exposure; some value a quiet, as-is sale. Either way, if it’s in my buy box, I’m glad to look at it.
What paperwork helps an investor move faster on an estate listing?
Confirmation of who has authority to sign, where the estate is in probate, and contact for the estate’s attorney. Those three things answer most of my early questions.