Congratulations!! You are buying a house and your offer was just accepted! Yay!! Now What?
I know you’re probably thinking, “I’m in escrow. Cool. I hope nobody asks me what that actually means.“ Escrow is essentially when a third party (your title company) facilitates a transaction and helps with the exchange of money and property; loosely translated, they are going to collect your money and put the property in your name. Now you’re in the know.
This list covers the basics of what to do now and what to expect throughout the transaction. If you’re working with us, you’re reading this because you just got a fairly lengthy email. We needed to give you something to do while we are working on your timeline, aka your to do list. You. Are. Welcome.
EARNEST MONEY
The first item on that list is going to be to send in your earnest money. Yes…. they do cash your check and it is held in an account until the end. You can use it toward your closing costs or down payment.
PROVIDE YOUR LENDER WHAT THEY NEED / ORDER APPRAISAL
We have told your lender the good news and now they are officially everybody’s new best friend. If you’re paying cash, please feel free to skip ahead. Those of use that aren’t, gather up everything your lender has asked you for and deliver them a complete package. We will need to order your appraisal and get a complete loan application in within 5 days. You will likely be asked for a credit card number when ordering the appraisal; they run about $600.
CONTACT YOUR INSURANCE AGENT
Call your insurance agent. Ask them for a quote on the property you are buying and send it to your lender. If you don’t have an insurance agent, we will gladly refer you to a good one.
INSPECTIONS
Most likely you’ll be doing inspections. If so, start thinking about what inspections you would like to do and who you would like to use. To see a list of some inspectors that we work with regularly, click here: Inspectors we’ve worked with.
Inspectors can be 7-10 days out and we usually have a couple weeks to get inspections done. Be thinking about who you would like to use, let us know and we will get those scheduled for you.
Most likely, you will have a repair allowance negotiated into your contract. Once we get inspections back, we have a few choices: (1) run away because the house may fall down (2) send over a list of repairs and/or ask for a monetary credit in lieu of repairs or (3) accept the house as it is. In most cases, we will decide what repairs are most important and make a request to have those items repaired or be credited for the repairs. If you end up canceling a deal over inspections, YES, you get your earnest money back (if you’re in your contract timelines).
TITLE PAPERWORK & HOA DOCS (IF ANY)
The title company is going to work on a preliminary title report. This report shows what is recorded on the property, such as liens (who the seller owes money to), the taxes due and any easements, such as the power company having the right to access a portion of your property. You get the opportunity to review that. It is extremely rare that issues arise for this contingency, but if they do, we will make an objection.
If the property is in an HOA, the seller is required to buy a full resale package for you to review. It will include the CC&R’s (the rules in which your HOA requires you live by) the budget, reserves, etc. If you decide you can’t live there for some reason, you have 5 days from the time you receive that package to let that be known.
APPRAISAL
After you’ve paid for the appraisal, an appraiser will be assigned. They will make an appointment to see the house. They will look at comparable sales and adjust the value up or down accordingly to give a professional opinion on the price of the home you’re buying. Appraisals come in at purchase price a lot of the time. If the appraisal comes in higher than the purchase price, that’s good news for you! The seller does not get a copy of the appraisal, so they will never know. If the appraisal comes in low, we have 3 choices: 1) agree to proceed at the purchase price 2) renegotiate with the seller 3) terminate the contract.
LOCKING YOUR LOAN
Typically, you want to lock your loan about halfway through the transaction; your lender will help you with this. This means you lock the interest rate, so you know exactly the rate you’re getting. Your lender may see a slight dip in rates and advise you to lock early.
DOWN PAYMENT / CLOSING COSTS
If your downpayment or closing costs are coming from a retirement account, you will want to start liquidating funds, so they are readily available for closing. If you have the money in savings or somewhere it can be withdrawn, just keep it there.
CONTINGENT SALES- BUYING AND SELLING AT THE SAME TIME
If we are buying and selling all at once, just tell us where to send the wine and know crying is totally normal. There are a lot of moving parts in this situation, but we know exactly what to do to keep the drinking and the crying to a minimum. The dates are so specific that we will work individually with you on this.
LOAN APPROVAL
Your loan will go through a lot of steps before you’ll get that absolute, final, unconditional loan approval. You are going to be asked for A LOT of paperwork. You’re probably already familiar with the list of basics, if not, click here: paperwork to gather. You will get disclosures to sign, multiple times, throughout this process. This is the government’s way of simplifying the fees and costs associated with getting a loan. We all know they are the simplification specialists; nothing breaks it down nice and easy like six pages of figures that you’ll see and sign 50 times.
PACKING / MOVING TRUCKS
When to start packing really depends on you. If you have things you aren’t using and want to get a head start on, great. I do recommend getting moving trucks, PODS or other storage options reserved early. For all of you type A’s, I know you can’t help yourself; go ahead and pack it all.
UTILITIES
2-3 days prior to closing, we will ask you to call to switch utilities. The two most important are power and water. Most commonly, you’ll be contacting NV Energy for power and gas at 775.834.4444 and TMWA for water at 775.834.8080. The title company will set up sewer for you after closing. Waste Management will not let you switch until the deed is recorded into your name. For a complete list, please visit moving contact list.
You can take care of a change of address with the Post Office here, by visiting change of address. If your new property has a locked mailbox, we will ask the seller to leave a key. You can go to your post office and have it re-keyed when you get a copy of your deed.
KEYS/MOVING IN
We will ask the seller to leave all of the key and the remotes in the house. We will take the key from the lockbox to deliver to you at closing.
We look forward to a smooth and successful transaction and we will be here to guide you all the way.
Christy Klingler | Realtor | Dickson Realty | Lic#S.49001
