When you finally find the home of your dreams, the thought of someone else taking it off the market instead of you can be unsettling. You’ll likely find yourself wondering how fast can you close on a house with cash and how soon you can move in. Before you find an answer to these questions regarding quick closings, let’s look at the steps involved in a successful real estate closing and move.
1. Open an Escrow Account
One of the first steps to getting an answer to the question ”how fast can you close on a house with cash” is opening an escrow account. It’ll be held by a third party for the seller and you, the buyer. A property sale involves taking several actions over several weeks. Bringing in an unbiased third party is the best way of ensuring both primary parties are protected from being duped.
This third party can hold all funds and paperwork associated with the transaction until everything is finalized. Once you finish all the procedural formalities, the documents and money will be transferred from the escrow account to the buyer and seller, ensuring a safe transaction. Having this set up in advance can help ensure quick closings.
2. Title Search and Insurance
Even if you hope the answer to the question how fast can you close on a house with cash is quick, for security and legal protection, be sure to perform a title search and verify the title insurance. These ensure that no one can try to claim your property later after you buy and move into your new property. A title search helps to verify a property’s legal ownership and determine any claims that may exist on the property by examining public records. If it has any claims, ask the seller to resolve them before buying the property. You may eb wondering if you need title insurance if paying cash. A good rule of thumb is to always get title insurance even if using cash in order to protect your investment. Although additional steps may feel like a barrier to quick closings, protection trumps speed in this case.
3. Hire an Attorney
While enlisting the help of a legal expert is more of an option, it’s wise to seek a professional legal opinion on the closing documents. They often include complicated jargon, which can be hard to comprehend, even for the most educated individuals. For a fee, getting the opinion of an experienced real estate attorney will present several benefits, including being informed of any problems in the paperwork. They’ll also have the most comprehensive answer to the question ”how fast can you close on a house with cash.”
4. Negotiate Closing Costs
From creating an escrow account with the help of an escrow service to engaging a real estate attorney, all entities and services involved cost money. They can get quite expensive if you aren’t careful. As an illustration, home and pest inspections are key to ensuring you don’t buy a property with hidden, costly issues.
However, many of these services exploit clients’ ignorance by charging exorbitant prices. Even legitimate closing services fees can be inflated. So even if you have the funds for the seller’s asking price on hand and are wondering ”how fast can you close on a house with cash” always negotiate the closing costs.
5. Finish the Home Inspection
A physical house inspection will allow you to identify any possible building issues and examine the neighborhood. You’ll have the option to cancel the transaction or ask the seller to make repairs if a severe issue with the property is discovered during the inspection. If you include a home inspection contingency in your purchase offer, you can also ask the seller to pay for the necessary repairs. Inspections may seem like a hindrance to quick closings, but it is necessary to ensure you are buying the right property.
6. Get a Pest Inspection
House and pest inspections are two distinct processes. The latter entails having a specialist check your home to ensure no carpenter ants, termites, or other insects that eat wood are present. For buildings primarily constructed with wood, pests can be disastrous. Most mortgage lenders demand that even minor pest issues be addressed before closing a deal.
A minor infestation has the potential to grow and become quite costly to remove. While getting rid of wood-damaging pests is possible, you want to ensure it can be remedied for a reasonable fee. Even better, perhaps you can convince the seller to take care of the pests before completing the purchase. In certain states, a pest inspection is a legal requirement; in others, they are an option. Getting a pest inspection will have an impact on ”how fast can you close on a house with cash.”
7. Meet Funding Requirements
Before you can get an answer to ”how fast can you close on a house with cash,” you need to meet funding requirements. When signing the purchase agreement, you likely deposited earnest money. Earnest money is a payment made to the seller to demonstrate the buyer’s good faith, commitment, and sincere interest in purchasing the property.
The earnest money can be used as compensation if the buyer backs out. If the seller is the one who does the backing out, the money goes back to the buyer. You’ll have to put more funds into escrow to complete your purchase.
8. Final Walk-Through
Before signing the closing papers and finding an answer to how fast can you close on a house with cash, be sure to take a look at the property one last time. Ensure the home hasn’t sustained any more damage since the last inspection. Also, confirm whether the seller has addressed the necessary repairs. Lastly, check if anything in the initial purchase agreement was removed.
9. Understand the Paperwork
As you think of how fast can you close on a house with cash, note that paperwork is an essential to closing a property deal. Even though you’ll likely have stacks of papers filled with complicated legal jargon and terms, set aside time to go through all of it yourself. For the things you don’t understand, seek the help of a real estate attorney.
10. Prepare and Plan Your Move
After closing the real estate deal and you can finally move in, you need to start creating a plan. Start with a preliminary plan and add to it as you figure out more details, a schedule, and a timeline. Consider what you need to do in your current home. This will typically include packing, decluttering, or any renovations or repairs you may need to make if you intend to sell the home.
Try to estimate your moving costs by factoring in the cost of everything from moving company fees, boxes, and bubble wrap, to packing tape so you can set a budget. You should also consider what your new home needs, such as professional house cleaning to be move-in ready, and keep a record of when you’ll receive the keys so you can put together a schedule to help keep things on track. On the matter of keys, you should also consider having a local locksmith company change the locks of your new home, as you never know who has a copy of the previous owner’s set of keys.
11. Should You Hire Movers or Move Yourself?
You have several options for moving all your possessions. You need to ask yourself a few questions to determine which is best. For example, how far is your new home from your current one? How much stuff will you be bringing with you? Do you have many heavy, family heirloom kinds of pieces or primarily small, apartment-sized furniture?
If you opt to go the DIY route and do everything from packing and moving, you’ll need to consider the cost of packing supplies and a moving rental vehicle in your budget. If you’d rather not, you can choose to either choose to do the packing and let the pros handle the moving part, or you can hire a local moving company to do everything for you. When interviewing prospective residential moving companies, ensure you ask all the right questions.
Learn what you can about the company’s licensing information and moving history. For example, if you have a piano that you need to bring to your new home, ask them about their history with piano moving. This will ensure you get a company with the experience you need. While the cost of hiring movers can be high, there are some affordable moving companies out there that offer great services.
12. Create a Timeline and Schedule
A move involves a lot of moving parts. To ensure you don’t forget anything and keep your sanity, create a timeline and a schedule. Start with a week-by-week schedule, then make it a day-by-day schedule as the day the truck is scheduled to arrive on your property gets closer. Note down which room you’ll pack on what day, days that you might need to have contractors perform repairs on your current home when you should hire the moving truck, and every other detail that’ll help you stay organized.
13. Sort Your Stuff
With a major move ahead of you, there’s no better time to go through all your stuff. While you may be tempted to put it off until the last minute, it’s best to sort everything before moving so you don’t end up with tons of extra boxes full of things you’ll throw out anyway. Think about what you want to keep, what you wish to donate to family and friends, and what no longer works.
It can be a long process, so give yourself enough time. After going through everything, you’ll need to figure out what to do with the things you’re not taking into your new home, whether that’s putting them in a personal storage container or just throwing them away with the help of a junk removal company.
14. Get Packing Supplies
Now that you have a clearer picture of how much stuff you need to move, start gathering boxes and other packing supplies. A general rule of thumb is to get more boxes than you believe you’ll need. You can always donate or sell unused packing supplies to someone preparing for a move.
Avoid finding yourself in a situation where you run out of packing supplies on moving day and have to make a last-minute dash to the store to find or purchase more. It’ll only cause you to waste time, making you even more stressed. You can find several packing calculators online to help you estimate how much you’ll need.
A great tip for saving on packing materials is to use your towels and linens for padding. Bubble wrap is quite costly, especially because you’d need a lot of it, so it’s effective. Wrap breakables such as lamps, frames, and dishes with towels and linens.
You likely set up your entertainment system when you brought it home and forgot about it. To help you remember where everything goes, take a picture of the wiring on the back of your system so it’s easier to set it up once you’ve moved into your new home. Do the same for anything else you need to disassemble for the move and reassemble once you reach the destination. Taking photos of fragile or valuable items is also a good idea if they get damaged or go missing during transit. The images will be helpful if you need to file an insurance claim.
As you pack boxes, color code the boxes to save on the time you’ll spend setting up in your new home. You can use different colored stickers or markers for this. When you get to the new home, you’ll have no problem identifying which room each box belongs to and if any are missing.
15. Transfer Utilities Before You Move
An important part of preparing for a move is to think about what utilities you’ll want to be working as soon as you move into the new home. Depending on your priorities, this will typically include water, gas, and electricity, followed closely by internet service and TV. Transfer all necessary utilities ahead of time to make your transition as seamless as possible.
One thing that doesn’t necessarily fall under utilities but you shouldn’t overlook is shopping for home insurance plans for your new aboard: it should be among your top priorities.
16. Moving Day
Moving day will be one of your most hectic undertakings, but there are things you can do to make the day smoother. For example, ensure you stay hydrated and eat well. Grab a cooler and fill it with easy-to-grab drinks and foods to help keep your strength up during the move. Keep the cooler out of the way so it doesn’t trip those helping you with the move, and be careful not to load it on the moving truck.
If you have young children and pets, make plans for offsite babysitting and pet sitting. All the activities that’ll be going on in your current and new home will likely get boring for your kids and stress out your pets. If possible, finish packing the day before the move or before the movers arrive. Your focus should be on ensuring everything goes in the truck.
When you finally set your eyes on your dream home, you want it to be yours as soon as possible. Use this read as a guide for how fast can you close on a house with cash and the steps involved in a successful closing. With this advice, quick closings can be a reality.