Jen Purzycki: Selling the House in a Divorce

There is a question underneath the question of whether to sell the house, and it is whether you can still make a decision this size. Lisa describes hiring a contractor years ago who asked what she wanted her kitchen to look like, and finding that she had no answer, because her preferences had stopped mattering long enough that she had put them away.

Jen Purzycki is part of the Purzycki White Real Estate team in San Clemente, California, which specializes in real estate sales during divorce and estate settlement. The team carries certification in divorce real estate along with mediation training, and Jen arrived at the specialty through probate, after her father's estate produced the same kind of conflict she now works in every week. She is direct about what makes these sales different: an ordinary sale involves a family who wants the same result, and this one involves two people who want opposite ones and have to agree anyway.

She and Lisa talk about taking the heat out of it and treating the house as a business decision, which Jen says protects the number at the end. They get into deferred maintenance, the appliances and repairs that stopped happening while the marriage was coming apart, and what her team does to fix that before a house goes on the market.

The rest is the checklist. What you owe and what your equity actually is, which your lender can confirm. Safety issues that will hold up a buyer's loan: mold, water intrusion, termite damage, electrical. An inspection you should get even if you are buying your spouse out, because you inherit whatever it finds and you want to know before you sign a settlement. The full monthly cost of keeping the house, including taxes, insurance, and association dues. The capital gains exclusion, which is worth considerably more while you are still married, and how the payout to your spouse should be structured with your attorney. Jen also describes the referral network her team keeps on hand, from forensic accountants to hoarding specialists, and closes on the part of this that lands on children: the house is their safe place, they should not be asked whether to sell it, and they should never hear that the other parent is forcing it.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• What a divorce real estate specialist does that an ordinary agent does not
• Why treating the sale as a business decision protects the final number
• Deferred maintenance: why it shows up in almost every divorce listing, and what to do
• The pre-sale checklist: payoff, equity, safety issues, and a real monthly cost
• Why you want an inspection even when you are the one buying your spouse out
• How the capital gains exclusion changes depending on when you sell
• The buyout question, and the only reliable way to establish market value
• What to say and what never to say to your kids about the house

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 What a divorce real estate specialist does differently
5:00 Her own family's estate fight, and why it changed her practice
7:00 Decision paralysis after years of having no say
11:00 Deferred maintenance, staging, and readying the house
15:00 The pre-sale checklist: equity, safety, insurance, inspection
18:00 Capital gains timing, and structuring a buyout in the settlement
20:00 The referral network, from forensic CPAs to hoarding specialists
21:00 Kids, the house as their safe place, and what not to put on them
24:00 The spousal buyout, and how fair market value gets set

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Purzycki White Real Estate Team, San Clemente CA: https://www.purzyckiwhite.com/

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.