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There are 408,927 homes in the U.S. that belong to the estate of someone who recently died. Almost none are on the MLS, and most are not in probate court yet either, which means the wholesalers pulling courthouse filings every Monday morning have not seen them.
That gap is the whole opportunity in pre-probate real estate. Here is where it is biggest.
What Pre-Probate Means
Pre-probate is the window between a homeowner's death and the day the estate is formally filed with the court. Depending on the state and family, that usually runs three to six months.
- Probate is public. Once the estate is filed, every investor with a courthouse login can pull it the same week.
- Pre-probate is not public as a single record. The death sits in one system and the property in another, and nobody connects them for you.
By the time a property hits formal probate, the heir has heard from a dozen people. In pre-probate, usually nobody has called at all.
It is slower than most off-market lead sources hidden in public records. The family just lost someone. This is not a motivated seller situation on day one, and you should not treat it like one.
How We Pulled This Data
We cross-referenced recent death records against nationwide parcel ownership data. When a recorded death matches a current owner and no estate filing exists yet, that property counts as pre-probate.
This is a national pull covering all 50 states, current as of August 2026. It is larger than our 22-state pre-probate index from July mostly because the coverage is wider, not because the market moved: on the ten states in both pulls, volume rose about half a percent in six weeks. Counts also shift as estates get filed, so pull the list fresh.
Pre-Probate Real Estate by State
These are ten of the highest-volume states in the August 2026 pull.
| State | Pre-Probate Properties | Investor Timing |
|---|---|---|
| New York | 107,153 | Act now, estates file fast |
| Illinois | 66,710 | Act now, shorter window |
| Ohio | 56,120 | High, probate runs 6 to 12 months |
| New Jersey | 20,728 | High, dense metro inventory |
| Texas | 14,485 | Moderate, growing volume |
| Pennsylvania | 13,525 | Moderate, aging Rust Belt |
| Georgia | 11,901 | Moderate, growing market |
| California | 5,721 | Lower, trusts bypass probate |
| Indiana | 4,621 | Moderate, affordable entry |
| Tennessee | 3,923 | Moderate, growing investor market |
| National total | 408,927 | All 50 states |
The ten states above hold 304,887 properties between them. The remaining 104,040 are spread across the rest of the country.
Three Patterns Worth Acting On
New York, Illinois, and Ohio hold more than half the volume
Those three account for 229,983 properties, or 56% of the national total. New York alone is 26%.
Three things drive it: older populations, long tenures where 30 years in the same house is common, and estate filing systems transparent enough to date the transition cleanly. Older owner plus decades of ownership equals an estate with real equity in it.
Florida, Arizona, and California come in lower than expected
California has 5,721. New York has nearly 19 times more, with roughly half the homeowners.
The reason is estate planning, not death rates. Living trusts are far more common in these states, and a house in a trust passes to heirs without probate, so it never enters the pre-probate pool. A low count is not a dead market. It means the inherited property in Phoenix surfaces as a trust transfer instead, so you need a different filter.
The Rust Belt has the cleanest profile
Ohio and Illinois together hold 122,830 properties. Add Pennsylvania and Indiana and you are over 140,000. Aging owners, long tenure, high equity against a low basis. A house bought in 1988 for $52,000 and owned outright is a very different negotiation than a 2021 purchase with a mortgage on it.
Who This Strategy Fits
Pre-probate real estate rewards a different temperament than most lead types. It fits you if you follow up over months rather than days, work well with estate attorneys and title companies, or invest in Midwest and Northeast markets where the volume is. It does not fit you if you need a deal closed in 30 days, or if your outreach is a high-volume cold call blast. That will fail here and damage your reputation while it does.
How to Work the List
1. Pull your market, not your state. Filter by zip code or county. A statewide Ohio list is 56,120 records, which is not workable. A three-county list is.
2. Identify who to contact. The deceased owner is still on title. You need the surviving spouse, adult child, or named executor, and skip tracing closes that gap. Accuracy matters more here than on any other list.
3. Reach out in the first 30 days. That is the highest-conversion window in our data, and it lands before the formal filing pulls everyone else in.
4. Lead with the situation, not the offer. A direct mail beats a call for first contact because it lets the family respond when they are ready. Say who you are, acknowledge the property may be part of an estate, and ask whether they have decided what to do with it. No price in the first touch, and if they are not ready, follow up in 60 days.
5. Build the attorney relationship. Probate attorneys handle the same estates on repeat. One good relationship produces more consistent volume than any list, and it is the same long game that makes probate lead strategies work once the estate is open.
Why Only DealMachine Has This Data
Every other tool starts at the courthouse. BiggerPockets, BatchLeads, and PropStream all cover probate investing, meaning estates contacted after the formal filing exists. That is a public record, so everyone gets it at once.
Pre-probate requires joining two datasets nobody else joins: real-time vital records and a nationwide parcel ownership database. No MLS carries it, no county publishes it as one list, and no competitor publishes pre-probate counts by state, county, or zip code, because none of them run the pipeline that would produce them. Same reason our absentee owner and tax delinquent data surfaces owners other tools miss.
Find Pre-Probate Leads in Your Market
All 408,927 properties are searchable by state, county, and zip code inside DealMachine. Pull your market, skip trace the heirs, and start outreach before the estate filing brings everyone else in.
Start finding pre-probate leads in your market.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is pre-probate in real estate?
Pre-probate describes a property whose owner has died but whose estate has not yet been filed with the probate court. The home is legally part of an estate, but no public court record exists yet. That period typically lasts three to six months.
How is pre-probate different from probate?
Timing and visibility. Probate properties appear in county court filings any investor can search, so competition is immediate. Pre-probate properties are found by matching death records to ownership records, which the county does not do for you. The window is earlier and far less crowded, which is why it has become an entry point for probate real estate investing.
Is it legal to contact pre-probate property owners?
Yes. No state prohibits contacting an heir or executor about a property, and property records are public everywhere. Access to recent death certificates is narrower and varies by state, which is the part our data pipeline handles for you. Normal marketing rules still apply: honor Do Not Call and state telemarketing rules if you are calling, and follow federal and state mailer rules. If an estate already has an attorney, direct your communication there, and confirm your own state's rules before you start.
What is the best way to approach estate heirs?
Keep it short and factual. Identify yourself, acknowledge the property may be part of an estate, and ask whether the family has decided what to do with it. No number, no urgency, no more than one follow-up a month. Heirs who are not ready in month one are often ready in month four, and they call back the investor who was respectful the first time.