Do i need a real estate agent to give my son my house?

Antonietta, the short answer is no, you do not need a real estate agent. You need a real estate or estate planning attorney. I hold the SRES designation, the Seniors Real Estate Specialist credential, and this question is most of what that training covers. The five answers above correctly point you to a deed. None of them mentions the part that usually costs the most money, so let me start there. If you give your son the house while you are alive, he takes your original cost basis. That is Internal Revenue Code Section 1015, carryover basis. If you leave him the house at your death, his basis resets to fair market value on that date. That is Section 1014, the step-up. Here is what that means in dollars. Say you bought for sixty thousand and it is worth four hundred thousand today. Gift it now and his basis is sixty thousand, so a sale produces a three hundred forty thousand dollar taxable gain, with no exclusion for him unless he lives there two of the five years before selling. Leave it to him instead and his basis becomes four hundred thousand, so a sale shortly after produces close to nothing. Gifting a long-held family home to a child during life is very often the most expensive way to transfer it. That is the headline. Now the rest. Gift tax. You almost certainly owe none. The 2026 annual exclusion is nineteen thousand dollars per recipient, and the lifetime gift and estate exemption is fifteen million dollars per person, raised and made permanent effective January 1, 2026. Both numbers moved since 2024, so ignore any figure you saw then. You must still file IRS Form 709 for the year of the gift to report it against your lifetime exemption. No tax due, filing still required. Medicaid. This is the one that hurts families. Transferring a home below fair market value starts a sixty month look-back. If you apply for nursing home Medicaid within five years of the gift, the state divides the value you gave away by its penalty divisor, and that is how many months you are ineligible. Exceptions exist, including a caregiver child exception, but they are narrow and fact-specific. Pennsylvania specifics. There is no state gift tax, but there is an inheritance tax at 4.5 percent for a child. Gifts over three thousand dollars per recipient per calendar year made within one year of your death get pulled back into that tax anyway, so a late gift does not dodge it. Also, Pennsylvania does not authorize transfer on death deeds for real estate. A bill moved out of House Judiciary in February 2026 but is not law, so do not record one. Your mortgage. If there is still a loan, ask before you sign anything. Garn-St Germain, at 12 U.S.C. 1701j-3, protects a transfer where a child of the borrower becomes an owner of a residence with fewer than five units, so the lender generally cannot accelerate. But it is narrower than people assume. It stops the lender from calling the loan. It does not make your son the borrower, does not release you from the note, and does not give him your interest rate. If you hold a reverse mortgage, the analysis is different and a transfer can trigger repayment. Ask your attorney about the alternatives: a revocable living trust, a life estate deed where you keep the right to live there and he takes the remainder, or leaving it to him by will. Each trades differently against basis, Medicaid and control. I am Zoltan Peresztegi, SRES, a real estate professional in Los Angeles and the South Bay, so I am not the one to handle a Monroe County deed. If you need a market value opinion for the paperwork, I am glad to connect you with a strong agent in my network near Henryville. Zoltan

Hi Antonietta! Gifting a house doesn't require a real estate agent since there's no sale, but you'll want a real estate attorney to prepare the deed properly and make sure it's recorded. You'll also want a tax professional's input, since gifting property can have gift tax implications and affects your sons' cost basis later. It's a generous thing to do for your family, just make sure the paperwork protects everyone!

Antonietta, a real estate agent might be able to offer value but is not required. A real estate attorney, also, also not required, is HIGHLY recommended. Keith Jean-Pierre Managing Principal The Dapper Agents Operations In: NY, NJ, FL & CA

No, you do not need a real estate agent to transfer property to a family member as a gift. This type of transfer is handled through a deed, not a traditional sale, and a real estate attorney can prepare and record it for you. In Homosassa and throughout Citrus County, Florida, gift deeds and quitclaim deeds are commonly used for intra-family transfers. A Florida-licensed attorney will draft the appropriate deed, ensure it is properly executed and notarized, and record it with the Citrus County Clerk of Courts to make the transfer official. What you do want to address carefully are the tax implications. Florida does not have a gift tax, but federal gift tax rules may apply depending on the value of the property and your lifetime exemption status. You will also want to consider how the transfer affects your son in terms of capital gains if he ever sells, since a gifted property carries over your cost basis. A CPA and a real estate attorney together will make sure this transfer is structured correctly from the start. Kevin Neely & Kaitlynd Robbins | K2 Sells

Yes. Have a Realtor or an Attorney.

If you were selling the house to a family member then a Realtor would be helpful, but if you are "gifting" a property to a family member then you need the services of a real estate attorney.