What the hell did you just do?!
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Your offer was just accepted.
You might be freaking out right now.
Up until now, you’ve probably never spent more than $5,000 at once.
Now you’re about to see most of your savings evaporate.
This is intense dude.
Take a deep breath.
Buying this house is probably the smartest thing you’ll ever do.
Buying real estate is a great investment and super responsible.
You’re going to be OK.
And in about 2 months when you’ve moved into your new house,
you’re gonna be happy as hell that you did this.
The next 4-8 weeks of your life will be slightly lame.
You’re going to be drowning in paperwork.
And it’ll stress you out.
You’re going to hear lots of real estate jargon that doesn’t make sense.
There will also be several hiccups.
There are always hiccups.
Because you’re anxious, love the house and have a lot of money riding on this,
you’ll freak out when the hiccups come up.
They’re just hiccups.
You’ll get through them.
You’ll get your house.
I HAVE NEVER SEEN A CLIENT NOT GET A HOUSE AFTER THEIR OFFER WAS ACCEPTED.
Docusign agreements will start pouring in.
You may read the first 1-3 of them.
But then you’ll become overwhelmed because there'll be too many.
Of course you should read every one of them.
But no one does.
So just sign the damn things.
Your real estate agent will be the main person you interact with.
But you’ll also get emails from random people you’ve never heard of:
mortgage lenders, appraisers, inspectors, title insurance companies and the list goes on.
When you get a random email that confuses you, contact your real estate agent and ask them why this random person is bugging you.
Here are some of the main people and real estate terms that will be part of your life for the next month or two:
Mortgage Lender (sometimes it’s a bank)
The people loaning you the money for the house.
You’ve already been pre-approved.
Pre-approval was the mortgage lender saying, I think you’re worthy of the loan.
Now that the mortgage lender actually has to give you money, they want to be 100% positive about you being able to pay them back.
This will generate a mountain of paperwork.
Just sign everything they send you.
And give them any statements they ask for.
Mortgage lenders are not very bright so you'll probably be annoyed when working with them.
Inspection
You’ll have a short time frame (1-2 weeks) to inspect the house. You’ll pay someone a few hundred bucks to visit the house and look for stuff that might be wrong with it. A few days later, the inspector will give you a big report of all the stuff wrong that they found. Your real estate agent will read the report and advise you if you should:
1. Proceed forward.
2. Bargain the seller down
3. Back out of the deal
If the inspection says the foundation is bad and it’ll cost $100,000 to fix, you can then ask the seller to lower the price. Sometimes the buyer says OK. Sometimes the buyer says no. Let’s cross this bridge if/when we get to it.
Some buyers waive the inspection. This makes you appealing to the seller. The seller doesn’t want some inspector looking for sh*t that might be wrong with their house. So if you waive the inspection, the seller is more likely to accept your offer.
Conversely, it’s a gamble to not do an inspection. Waiving the inspection may get you the house but what happens if you end up buying the house to only then learn that something major is wrong with it.
I do not recommend waiving an inspection. But…in the Bay Area, oftentimes buyers are desperate and do it anyway. Your real estate agent will consult with you.
Appraisal
The mortgage lender/bank is loaning you money to buy the house.
If you’re unable to pay the bank back, the house will go to the bank.
So it’s important to the bank that your house is valuable.
The appraisal is the bank trying to figure out what they think the house is worth.
If the bank thinks your house isn’t worth all that much, they won’t loan you money.
I’ve never seen this happen.
The Title
The official piece of paper that declares who owns the property. It’s insane that this is still a thing in the 21st century but apparently it is. The title company will drown you in paperwork and then charge you lots of money just so the official piece of paper will have your name on it.
Transfer Fees/Taxes
It’s kinda like sales tax. The City and County will charge the buyer & seller a lot of money because the government’s full time job is to be a cocksucker.
Escrow
At some point, you’ll hear someone say, ‘you’re in escrow’. I’m still unclear on what exactly 'escrow' means. But it’s a good thing. It means all the paper pushers are doing their jobs and figuring out the paperwork.
Even if you were responsible enough to have read this entire article,
you’ll still be confused during most of the closing process.
Lean on your real estate agent and ask them for help and support.
It’s their job.
It’s worth saying this again:
I HAVE NEVER SEEN A CLIENT NOT GET A HOUSE AFTER THEIR OFFER WAS ACCEPTED.
While the next couple weeks will probably suck,
I promise you, it’ll all be worth it once you’re moved in.
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