Congratulations, your offer has been accepted, Now what? Stay tuned b/c that’s what we are talking about today so let’s get to it.
So you have an executed contract on a home. How exciting!!! That’s awesome, so what do you need to do to make sure you make it to the closing table. First a disclaimer I am only speaking about purchasing a home in Florida. Every state may do things differently, and some counties in Florida may as well so definitely lean on your Realtor with any questions about the process. Remember when you are calculating contingency dates, you are counting from the day your contract was executed which is the date the seller signed.
Steps after your offer on a house is accepted
Earnest Money
First thing, you will need to do upon an executed contract is get your earnest money deposit to your realtor or the closing agent which could be a title company or attorney within 3 days, or however many days you put on the contract. You can use a personal check or a cashiers check and make sure to put the property address of the house you are purchasing in the memo of the check.
If your escrow is not received within the days agreed upon. The seller can terminate the contract, so if you have any issues, make sure you are communicating with your Realtor so they can help.
Home Inspections
Second thing you need to do is schedule your home inspections. On the contract you entered days for your inspection contingency. It could be 10 days , 15 or even 5. This is the time you allotted yourself to do your due diligence on the home. A home inspection is very important, it’ll cost about $350 to $500 depending on the homes size. The purpose of this inspection is to see what the homes condition is and to learn if there are any major issues that will need to be addressed.
If the home has a septic you will probably want to have that inspected as well. Just remember the septic needs to be pumped out in order to be inspected and this along with inspection can cost you about $700.
You may think these inspection are costly but trust they are far less expensive than taking on a home with major issues unknowingly. Your due diligence period should be utilized to learn as much as you can about the property you are about to purchase.
Your Realtor will share inspection repair requests with the seller and negotiate either repairs or price adjustments for you.
Mortgage
Apply for your mortgage. You will have a clause on your contract that says you need to apply for a mortgage within a certain amount of time, it’s generally 5 days. Make sure you get the ball rolling with your lender so they can meet the timeline dates of your contract. Send your lender everything they request from you in order to get your file submitted to the underwriting team.
One very very very important thing NOT DO during this time is buy anything on credit. Do not finance a new car, furniture, appliances or anything of a large $ amount. DO NOT co-sign a loan for someone else either. Any of these things will affect your credit and skew your debt to income ratio which can have your mortgage for your home purchase be denied.
Wait until after the closing and keys are in your hand to buy anything for the house.
Waiting Period
You wait
After the inspection repairs are agreed upon, your lender will order the appraisal so you are looking at about 2 weeks for the value report to come back so there is nothing to do at that point.
But it is a nice time to explore the neighborhood get to know your neighbors.
Close on your Home
If all goes smoothly you will be working towards the closing date.
YAY!
Buying a home can be scary and exciting at the same time, so take a breath and lean on your Realtor with any questions or concerns, that’s what they are there for.
Feel free to reach out with any questions you have. You’ll find my contact info in the description below.
I hope you found this info helpful. If so you may want to watch this next video.
I appreciate you tuning in and I will catch you on the next one.
