An executor calls about a listing. Partway through the conversation she mentions the estate attorney is “still deciding on the valuation date.” You nod along and move on to comps. That one sentence can change when you should list the house.

Most estates value real property as of the date of death and move straight to market. Some estates elect a different date, six months out, and that election can shape your timeline, your marketing, and what you tell the heirs about pricing. You do not need to practice tax law to handle this well. You need to know the question exists and who answers it.

An estate attorney’s election on valuation date can shape when a listing should go live, not just how it gets taxed.

What the Alternate Valuation Date Actually Is

Estates value assets, including real property, as of the date the owner died. Section 2032 of the tax code lets an estate elect a second date instead, six months after death, for every asset in the estate at once. Counsel makes this election, not you, and only when it lowers both the size of the estate and the tax owed.

This is not a decision an agent should weigh in on. It is a decision an agent should ask about, because the answer changes what happens next on your file.

Why This Matters to You as the Listing Agent

When an estate elects the alternate date, the six-month window is not a formality sitting in a file at the attorney’s office. It is a live period during which the property’s value is still being measured for the estate.

A property sold during that window at arm’s length can itself become evidence of the alternate value, which is exactly why some attorneys ask executors to hold off listing until the election settles, or until the appraiser has already inspected the property at the correct point in that six-month period. Other attorneys see no conflict at all and are ready to list the day you get the call.

You will not know which situation you are in until you ask.

Does Listing the Property Affect the Election?

Sometimes, yes. A sale that closes inside the six-month window can influence the value the estate reports for that asset, depending on how close the sale price sits to what an appraisal would show and how the estate’s counsel wants to document the position.

This is precisely why the appraisal and the listing timeline need to talk to each other. An appraiser working the file should know whether the effective date is the date of death or the alternate date before the inspection happens, and the listing agent should know whether counsel wants the sale to close before or after that date settles.

None of this is a reason to sit on a listing indefinitely. It is a reason to make one phone call before you set a list date.

A home in Jenkintown, PA — Montgomery County estate files where valuation timing and listing timing need to move together.

What to Ask the Estate Attorney Before You Set a Listing Date

Three questions, asked early, prevent almost every problem here.

Has the estate elected the alternate valuation date, or is it using the date of death? If the attorney has not decided yet, ask when that decision lands, because your marketing timeline may need to wait on it.

Does counsel want the appraisal effective date to match the eventual sale, or are the two meant to stand independently? Some attorneys want daylight between them. Others do not.

Is there a preference on when the sale should close relative to the six-month mark? A closing two weeks before the window ends reads differently to the estate’s counsel than a closing two weeks after.

Bring these questions to the same meeting where you discuss commission and marketing plan. It costs five minutes and saves a rescheduled listing date.

How This Plays Out in Bucks and Montgomery County Estates

Most estates in this market never come close to the federal filing threshold and skip the alternate valuation question entirely. The ones that do elect it tend to be larger estates, business-owning families, or estates holding several properties where the six-month window changed the total picture enough to matter.

When you do land one of these files, the appraiser’s role expands slightly. A retrospective appraisal built to the date of death is a different assignment than one built to a date six months later, and the appraiser needs the correct date before research starts, not after the report is drafted. This is the same competency question that shows up in how the IRS reviews estate appraisals more broadly: the effective date drives everything downstream.

A home in Horsham, PA — one of the Montgomery County markets where estate sale timing and tax elections intersect.

What to Tell Heirs Who Want to Wait

Heirs sometimes hear “six-month valuation date” and decide the house should sit empty until that date passes, on the theory that waiting protects the estate. That is rarely the right read, and it is not your call to make either. Tell them plainly that the valuation election is a tax question for the estate attorney and the appraiser, and the listing timeline is a market question for you. The two get coordinated, not merged. A vacant house carrying six extra months of taxes, insurance, and upkeep costs the estate real money, and that cost needs to be weighed against whatever the election is meant to accomplish.

Your job is to make sure the right professionals are talking to each other before the sign goes in the yard. Once that call happens, you go back to pricing the property on today’s estate property appraisal pricing data, not a date months in the past.