What should you do if your parents need senior care quickly, but most of their money is tied up in their home?
Start by confirming who has the legal authority to sell the property, then determine its realistic value and compare your sale options before accepting a quick cash offer. When care costs are mounting, moving quickly matters, but protecting the home equity that may fund years of care matters just as much.
Melina Rissone helps San Diego families evaluate a parent’s home, understand their real estate options, and coordinate a sale when senior care, downsizing, or a major transition creates a tight timeline.
Imagine a shared suite becomes available in a board-and-care home where both of your parents can stay together as their dementia progresses. You have only three days to decide. Their care will cost $10,000 per month, their savings may cover only a few months, and most of their financial resources are tied up in the house.
That creates an immediate question: How do you move quickly without sacrificing the equity your parents may need for their care?
Determining Who Has Authority to Sell Your Parents’ Home
Before worrying about repairs, pricing, or buyers, determine who can legally sign the sale documents.
If the property is held in a living trust, start with the trust itself. The acting trustee will generally have authority to manage trust property, but a successor trustee cannot simply take over because a parent has dementia. The requirements written into the trust for establishing incapacity and successor authority must first be satisfied.
A health care power of attorney is different. It generally authorizes someone to make medical decisions, not sell real estate.
A financial power of attorney may provide authority to handle real estate transactions, depending on its wording, whether it is currently effective, and how the property is titled.
Before listing the property or signing a purchase agreement, Melina recommends having a California trust and estate attorney and the title company confirm who has signing authority and what documentation will be required.
Finding out during escrow that the person signing does not have sufficient authority can cause serious delays at exactly the wrong time.
What If Your Parents Need Money for Care Before the House Sells?
One of the biggest concerns families have is simple: What happens if their savings run out before the sale closes?
A reverse mortgage may sound like a possible short-term solution, but it generally makes more sense for homeowners who plan to continue living in their property.
HUD’s Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program is designed around the property remaining the borrower’s principal residence. A permanent move into senior care can eventually cause a reverse mortgage to become due, depending on the circumstances.
If your parents already have a reverse mortgage, or one spouse will remain in the home, the situation can be different. Speak with the loan servicer and a HUD-approved housing counselor before making decisions based on assumptions about the loan.
For many families, the house remains the largest available source of money for care.
That makes knowing its value especially important.
Before deciding whether to renovate, list traditionally, or consider an off-market sale, get a property-specific valuation based on the home’s current condition.
Should You List the Home or Sell It Off Market?
Once you understand the property’s likely value, you can compare the two primary approaches.
Full-Market Sale
Putting the home on the open market generally gives you the best opportunity to expose it to the largest number of buyers and test its highest potential value.
However, preparing an older parent’s home for sale can involve:
- Removing decades of belongings
- Making repairs or safety improvements
- Cleaning and preparing the property
- Professional photography
- Repeated buyer showings
- Managing inspections and negotiations
If a senior living placement is extremely time-sensitive, the family may not have several weeks to prepare and market the home.
Competitive Off-Market Sale
Another option is a broker-managed off-market process.
Instead of accepting an offer from the first investor who calls, Melina can expose the property to multiple qualified buyers and create competition while keeping the sale more private.
Buyers can inspect the home, provide proof of funds, and submit offers with clearly defined contingencies and closing terms.
You may trade some potential upside for speed and convenience, but you still have an opportunity to compare multiple offers.
If privacy and timing are major priorities, a controlled off-market sale may make sense. If there is enough time to prepare the property properly, broader market exposure may provide a stronger test of the home’s value.
Be Careful With a Single Investor Offer
A direct cash offer can be appealing when your parents need care immediately.
No repairs. No public showings. Potentially a quick closing.
But speed should not eliminate comparison.
Many investors evaluate properties using formulas designed to leave enough room for renovations, carrying costs, resale expenses, and profit.
A common example is the so-called 70% rule, where an investor starts with roughly 70% of the property’s estimated after-repair value and then subtracts renovation costs.
For example:
If a home could be worth $1,000,000 after renovations and requires approximately $80,000 in work, a simple 70% calculation would produce an offer around:
$700,000 – $80,000 = $620,000
Now imagine a competitive as-is process produces an offer equal to 80% of that hypothetical after-repair value.
That would be approximately $800,000.
The difference is $180,000 in gross sale price, before commissions, closing costs, repairs, taxes, or other expenses.
That does not mean every property will sell for 80% of its renovated value, nor does it guarantee a certain price.
The point is simpler: one investor offer does not establish the market value of the home.
When that equity may be paying for several years of senior care, getting competitive offers can matter tremendously.
How Selling the Home Could Affect Medi-Cal
Selling a parent’s property can also create benefits-planning issues.
California reinstated asset limits for certain Medi-Cal applicants and recipients beginning January 1, 2026, including many people age 65 or older and those requiring long-term care.
Through June 30, 2027, the general asset limit is $130,000 for one person, plus $65,000 for each additional qualifying household member, although different rules and protections can apply to married couples.
This matters because a primary residence may be treated differently from cash.
If your parents sell their home, proceeds sitting in a bank account may become countable assets for Medi-Cal purposes.
Selling property for fair market value is also very different from transferring it for less than its value.
For people seeking long-term-care Medi-Cal, California uses a 30-month look-back period for certain transfers made for less than fair market value. DHCS states that transfers made on or after January 1, 2026 may cause a period of ineligibility for long-term-care coverage.
Because the rules depend heavily on the individual’s circumstances, families should speak with an elder-law attorney or qualified Medi-Cal benefits professional before transferring property or distributing sale proceeds.
Does Medi-Cal Pay for Board-and-Care?
Do not assume qualifying for Medi-Cal means the entire cost of assisted living or board-and-care will be covered.
California’s Assisted Living Waiver can help eligible individuals pay for certain care services in participating settings, including some Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly.
However, the Assisted Living Waiver does not pay room and board. Participants must have sufficient income or other resources to cover those costs themselves. The program also has eligibility requirements and limited enrollment capacity.
This is another reason families should understand how much equity may realistically be available from the home before making long-term care commitments.
Don’t Let Family Conflict or the Move Delay the Sale
Legal authority is only one potential source of delays.
Family disagreements can create just as many problems.
For example, one sibling might serve as trustee while another holds health care power of attorney. Those roles involve different responsibilities.
The person handling medical decisions does not automatically control the real estate transaction.
But disagreements about care, timing, pricing, belongings, and where the parents should live can still consume valuable time.
Depending on the family’s circumstances, an elder-law attorney, mediator, or licensed professional fiduciary may help clarify responsibilities and move decisions forward.
The physical move should also have its own plan.
For someone with dementia, familiar furniture, family photographs, artwork, and personal items can make a new environment feel more recognizable.
A senior move manager can help the family decide what needs to move immediately, what can be sorted later, and how to secure and prepare the house without forcing decades of decisions into a three-day deadline.
Melina regularly works with senior-focused professionals in San Diego and can help families identify resources when selling the home is only one part of a much larger transition.
Disclose Known Property Issues Early
Older family homes often have additions, converted rooms, deferred maintenance, or improvements completed many years ago.
If you know that bedrooms, bathrooms, additions, or other improvements may have been completed without permits, disclose what you know.
Unpermitted improvements do not automatically prevent a property from selling. They can, however, affect:
- Property value
- Buyer financing
- Insurance
- Appraisals
- Inspections
- Buyer willingness to move forward
Identifying these issues early allows Melina to help determine which type of buyer and sale strategy may be appropriate rather than discovering problems halfway through escrow.
Protect the Equity That May Be Paying for Your Parents’ Care
When a care opening becomes available and savings are disappearing quickly, accepting the first cash offer can feel like the easiest solution.
But the first few days are often the most important.
Before making a decision, consider speaking with:
- A California trust or elder-law attorney
- The title company
- A Medi-Cal or benefits professional
- A qualified senior move manager
- A real estate broker who can compare more than one way of selling the property
The goal is not simply to sell quickly.
It is to create a sale that works within your parents’ care timeline while protecting as much of their home equity as reasonably possible.
If your family is trying to determine what to do with a parent’s San Diego home, Melina Rissone, can help you understand the property’s current value and compare a traditional listing with potential off-market options.
