Are you closing on a house in Eugene soon? Buying a house is stressful, but understanding the mortgage process can reduce your anxiety. Here’s what you need to know about finalizing your home purchase.
From Offer to Closing
Congratulations on arriving at the closing part of your home purchase. Because we have a robust real estate market in Lane County, finding the right house isn’t always a speedy undertaking.
How many houses did you tour before picking one that met your hopes and requirements? Whether you visited one or fifty homes, making a purchase offer can be a nerve-wracking experience. Learning that the seller accepted your purchase bid was undoubtedly a moment of outright joy as you began to imagine yourself in your new home.
However, before you head to your local home improvement store, you’ll need to navigate through the closing steps for your home loan. Finalizing a home sale is not a sure thing, and more sales than you’d imagine fail to complete.
Why Sales Don’t Finish
There is a myriad of reasons that a house sale might collapse. Sometimes buyers get nervous and discontinue the sale. Perhaps the buyer takes an unexpected job offer out of town and must cancel the sale.
Zillow notes that some of the primary reasons for a house sale to fail to close are:
- A home appraisal is much lower than the sales price.
- A buyer can’t obtain a mortgage.
- A home inspection reveals expensive issues.
- A buyer can’t sell their present home.
Before you get discouraged, keep in mind that the vast number of sales do close. The chances are excellent that you’ll receive the keys to your new front door at the end of the closing process. Let’s look at the steps involved in closing on a house.
First Steps to Closing on a House
Houses in Lane County are expensive. The result is that you’ll likely need to take out a mortgage to afford your new home. Since there is a significant amount of money at stake in purchasing real estate, finalizing the sale takes time.
When the seller accepts your offer, the sale process goes into something called escrow. The earnest and down payment checks fall into an escrow account. The close of escrow essentially occurs at the house sale.
Although you don’t need to hire a real estate attorney to assist you with your Eugene house purchase, it’s a smart idea. An experienced lawyer understands the jargon and pitfalls involved in real estate transactions and can be an essential guide.
Contingencies
Much of the closing process consists of eliminating the contingencies you added to your offer to buy a house. You likely included some contingencies in your purchase offer. Examples of common contingencies include:
- Financing
- Inspection
- Appraisal
- Title
- Home Sale
Each contingency has a specific date at which the buyer agrees to continue with the sale. If, for example, the inspection indicates that the home needs a costly flood control system, the buyer might opt to use the inspection contingency to end the sale.
On Your Way to Closing
The contingencies are an excellent way of viewing the critical things that happen during the closing phase. Your real estate agent and the lender will help you understand how each of the following steps impacts your particular purchase. Here are the primary things that usually take place before a house sale closes.
No.1- Loan Approval
Unless you can pay cash for your home, you’ll need to secure a mortgage. Hopefully, you already went through the loan approval process before making an offer on a home. If not, expect your lender to carefully scrutinize your financial history and your ability to repay the home loan.
No.2- Home Appraisal
The lender must make sure that the property has a current market value that warrants the loan’s value. Banks don’t like to finance more than eighty percent of the property’s value. A low appraisal means that you might need to negotiate the sales price or contribute a more significant down payment.
No.3- Home Inspection
Even the most beautiful home can hide costly imperfections. A trained home inspector will examine every part of the house to determine if there are any necessary repairs. You might be able to convince a seller to fully or partially pay for the repairs instead of lowering the sales price.
No.4- Title Inspection
The last thing you’d want to find out after you buy a house is that there are liens on the property. The title inspection searches for liens and other property disputes so that you can be sure that your new home is free of title issues.
No.5- Other Contingencies
Do you have a home to sell before you can close on your new house? A home sale contingency is an example of other types of contingencies that the buyer must remove to close escrow. Talk to your Mortgage Advisors on whether there are solutions to remove such contingencies.
Completing the steps for closing on a house usually can’t happen soon enough for eager buyers. Most home purchases close within a few months of the start of escrow, so you won’t need to wait long to move into your new home.
Last Thoughts
The best part of closing on a house is that you’ll become a homeowner in Lane County. You already know that our area is rich with those things that make for a superior lifestyle. Now you can feel a permanent connection to the community that you love.
The home loan officers at Strategic Mortgage Solutions want to help you buy a house in your favorite Eugene neighborhood. We’ll work with you to discover home loan options that best fit your needs and lifestyle. Contact us today to learn why homeownership can become your reality.
