After a few months of rigorously marketing and selling your home, you accept an offer, and your property is under contract. That’s great, but it doesn’t mean you’ll walk away with cash on the spot or even that the offerers will be the buyers. At this point, we shift our focus from making noise about Western Colorado real estate to the closing process.
Everybody wants to sell their property quickly, but there’s a long list of steps to make the deal official. Of course, as excited as you are about selling your home, the potential buyers are equally as anxious to ensure their investment is up to snuff. Therefore, the closing process involves several inspections and insurance to verify your home and title are in good condition.
If you’ve recently accepted an offer on your property for sale, check out this rundown of the closing process for sellers.
What is a Closing?
The closing phase of the home-selling process requires inspections, documentation, and payment to transfer ownership of your property from you to the buyer. Closing day is the day the transfer officially happens.
What are the Steps to Closing?
You’ve already negotiated and accepted an offer from the buyer. To officially close, we need to complete a few other steps. Let’s explore what you and the buyers must do before closing day.
Do a Title Search and Obtain Title Insurance
As your closing agent, I’m responsible for ordering a title search on your property. This search reviews public records to make sure you’re the legal owner and there are no claims or judgments against the property. If something does come up, we’ll work together to resolve it.
The buyer of your property will need to obtain a title insurance policy to protect them from incurring financial loss due to past issues with the property. There are two types of title insurance policies: for buyers and lenders. Your listing contract will stipulate whether you or the buyer is responsible for paying for these policies.
Complete the Home Inspection
While a home inspection isn’t required, most buyers of residential properties will insist on one. The home inspection usually occurs a few days after accepting the buyer’s offer.
If your home needs repairs, it’s better to take care of them before the home inspection than for the inspector to find them and notify the buyer. Transparency is critical because depending on the contingencies in your contract, the buyer may have you cover the cost of repairs or may be able to withdraw the offer entirely.
Many sellers choose to order a home inspection themselves before they list their property. This provides you and potential buyers with complete transparency about the state of the property and allows you to remedy any major issues before they cause an offer to fall through. Learn more about ways to streamline the “contract to closing” period and get more money for your property in this blog post: “The Key to Getting The Most Money For Your Property.”
Buyer Gets a Lender Appraisal
If the buyer is borrowing money, the mortgage lender will require a professional appraisal to assess whether the property value aligns with the loan amount. The appraisal considers the individual value of your property’s features and comparable properties that have sold nearby.
Final Walk-Through
Roughly a day before the closing date, the buyer and their agent will do a final walk-through of the property to ensure everything is in order. They’ll check to see that you’ve made necessary repairs and that the property is clean and in good condition. If they notice any new damage, you may have to address this, which could delay the closing.
On Closing Day
On closing day, we’ll finalize the paperwork to make the real estate transaction official. One of the papers you’ll sign is the deed of the property, transferring ownership from you to the buyer.
To learn more about Western Colorado real estate and selling your home, consider United Country Real Estate Western Land & Lifestyle Properties for the job. Email me at rob@coloradocountrybroker.com to get started.
