Probate, trust or neither
If the house was in a living trust, the successor trustee can usually sell it without going to court. If it wasn't, the estate typically goes through probate in the county where your parent lived.
In probate, a lot depends on the authority the court gives the personal representative. With full authority under California's Independent Administration of Estates Act, they can sell after giving the heirs notice of the proposed sale, with no court hearing. With limited authority, the court has to confirm the sale, and other buyers can show up at the hearing and overbid. The California courts' probate self-help pages explain both paths in plain language. Read them before you talk to anyone who wants to buy the house.
Prop 19 changed the math on keeping it
Before 2021, children could often inherit a parent's low property tax base. Under Proposition 19, that only works if a child moves in and makes the house their primary home. Even then, if the house is worth far more than its old taxable value, part of it still gets reassessed. If nobody in the family is moving in, the house is reassessed to market value, and the tax bill on a house your parents bought in the 1970s can jump by thousands a year. That alone pushes a lot of families to sell. The Board of Equalization's Prop 19 page has the details.
Taxes on the sale
Inherited property usually gets a stepped-up basis, which means its value for capital gains purposes resets to roughly what it was worth when your parent died. Sell fairly soon after and there's often little or no gain to tax. IRS Publication 559 covers how this works for survivors and executors, and a tax preparer can tell you how it applies to your family.
The stuff inside
You don't have to empty the house. Take the photos, the papers and whatever matters to you, and leave the rest. The buyer handles the cleanout after closing. If siblings live out of state, the title company can usually arrange for documents to be signed where they are.
When there are several heirs
A written cash offer gives everyone one number to look at. The proceeds are paid out through escrow according to the will, the trust or the court's order, so nobody has to trust anybody else with a check. If one heir wants to keep the house, a buyout of the others is worth talking through before you call anyone.