It’s both exciting and stressful negotiating a real estate purchase contract. Once it’s signed by the sellers, buyers can relax a bit, but Design or List It can’t. There are still more negotiations, document deliveries, inspections, title details and mortgage tasks to be accomplished to reach a successful closing and walk away with the keys to your new real estate property.
There are more than 50 specific due dates and tasks on our average transaction checklist, but an overview of a few includes:
- Post contract delivery of documents to the title company and ordering of a title binder or commitment.
- Deposit of earnest money and delivery of receipt to the buyer client.
- Helping our buyers to order inspections and coordinating them and providing access to assure they’re completed on time.
- Coordinating timely delivery of any documents objecting to disclosures, inspection results, or title binder issues discovered.
- Coordinating appraisal and appraiser access.
- Working with mortgage company and coordinating delivery of documents they require.
- Assisting our buyers with any negotiations related to contingencies, inspections or documents.
- Constant monitoring of status of all processes at the title company.
There are a number of companies and people involved in a real estate transaction, including attornies, surveyors, appraiser, title company, mortgage broker, lender, loan underwriter, both agents, and possibly others. Each has specific duties and requirements, and each is concentrating on doing a good job for you. However, their focus is narrow, targeted on their specific niche in the deal. As your buyer agent, we’re your “go-to” resource to bring it all together. We’re here to coordinate the activities of all of these companies and people for you.
We’re constantly monitoring those 50+ document delivery items and the work done by these people. Daily we check the progress against contractual deadlines and act on our project requirements. A lot of this activity goes on behind the scenes and you’re not even bothered. Some of it requires that we contact you and request documents or actions. Please understand that our overriding goal is a smooth transaction, and getting you through meeting all deadlines is one of our jobs. We’ll only bother you when necessary, telling you what we need and when, and moving you through to a successful closing.
There is a lot more, but those are the highlights, and many sub–tasks are related to each of them. Design or List It Inc is obsessed with proper follow–up and detailed coordination of every step of the closing process for our buyer clients. It’s critical that we make all deadlines and keep the transaction on track to avoid defaulting on any terms of the contract. We’ll keep your real estate transaction on track, and you’ll have the time and advice you need to assure you’ve covered all of the bases prior to closing.
Sellers
Our seller clients really appreciate our services in listing, marketing and getting a buyer signed on the dotted line on a purchase contract. However, neither they nor we can rest just because a contract is inked. There are more than 50 tasks and deadline deliveries on our normal residential seller side real estate transaction checklist. And, we take our responsibilities seriously in the processing of all documents and meeting of all deadlines.
The process of taking a signed purchase contract through to closing involves a great many details, deliveries and document submissions. We coordinate all of this for our sellers, making sure that all phases of the closing process move along smoothly.
- Title – We work closely with the title company and attorneys to make sure that all documents and deliveries are processed in a timely manner. We work with our sellers to examine all of their title and recorded documents to uncover all material defects and items of importance. Though this is normally of more concern to the buyer, sellers must respond to their objections, so it’s important to know what’s in all recorded documents. Example: while there are normally few items in a title binder that can be corrected as they’re recorded and pass with the property, sometimes there are requirements or exceptions that weren’t expected but must be addressed. With the more careful lending environment, more “quit-claim” deeds are being required as one example. Perhaps you have a previous divorce and the lender wants better protection against claims and will require a quitclaim deed from your former spouse.
- Inspections, Survey & Appraisal – Our job is to coordinate access for inspectors and the appraiser, and to accept deliveries of reports as well as any objections or correction requirements from the buyers. We take this job seriously and will be with our sellers every step of the way. Every instance of delivery of an inspection and/or buyer objections requires a response in most cases, and there are deadlines. We stay on top of these deadlines, make sure reports are delivered to you on time or extensions are put into place, and that you respond within required time lines. Failure to do so could obligate you to repairs or other corrections or kill the deal.
- Repair Negotiations – If the buyer submits requirements for corrective actions to items on reports, we work with our sellers to determine the cost of those requirements and the appropriate response necessary to keep the deal going in a way beneficial to our seller clients. Should you agree to make certain repairs, there will be deadlines associated with completion, and possibly requirements for the buyer’s inspector to return and re-inspect for completion and repair quality. We keep all of this on track for you, and can recommend contractors we know do quality work at fair prices.
- Lender Document Coordination – One of the leading causes of delayed closings is some problem with funding due to lender last minute requirements or other document demands. We are monitoring all document flows to make sure this doesn’t happen for our sellers. As the seller, you aren’t getting a mortgage, but you need to be very concerned with the buyer’s ability to do so and their lender’s process and ability to meet deadlines and fund at closing. Mortgage problems kill a lot of deals, so we’re going to be involved in the buyer’s process to protect you, our seller client.
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