How to Make Your Home Closing Quick and Stress-Free

How to Make the Home Closing Process Easy

Closing on a home can be tough and it can cause a lot of stress. Here’s how to make the home closing process simple, quick, and stress-free.

Home closings can take a minimum of 30 days but could easily stretch over several months, tying up your finances and opening the process up to problems.

During that time, you’ll be paying rent on a place that you’re ready to leave or you’ll be paying high prices for a week-to-week lease. To save you money and stress, you’ll need to speed up the home closing process.

Finding the perfect home takes enough time as it is. Once you start looking, you’ve got one foot out the door of your current place while the other waits to land in your new place. The interim period can be mentally and emotionally taxing.

In order to get settled and start building your life in your new home, you need to ensure that your closing can breeze by. Follow these 8 tips to ensure your home closing process is quick and easy.

1. A Preapproval Letter For The Home Closing Process

After you’ve spoken to your lender and they’ve looked at your financial status, have them put together a preapproval letter. This will allow you to prove how much your lender is willing to give you.

When you find something within that range, you’ll be able to expedite the buying process with proof to back up your assets. Lots of people will seem interested during a viewing, but those who can prove they’ve got the money for that home will be pushed to the front of the queue.

2. Get A Great Realtor

When you’re looking for realtors, treat it like they’re interviewing for a job working for you. Have questions prepared and get to know a little about their history. If you have friends or family who’ve recently worked with a realtor, ask them for tips on questions or even realtor recommendations.

When you find someone you like, look them up online. If they have a website, read through it thoroughly. New and inexperienced realtors need a shot like anyone else but if you’re in a competitive market, you might need someone with a strong track record.

Take a look at realty website to see if there are any reviews. Some realtors even ask their clients for Yelp reviews, so leave no stone unturned.

3. Get A Great Lender

People have had a variety of experiences with bankers and mortgage brokers, but many more recommend a broker if you can get one. Bankers don’t need to be licensed and won’t be available when you need them.

A broker will answer your questions after 5 p.m. on Friday in a way that bankers won’t. Once you find someone you get along with, look up reviews before you agree to work with them.

4. Be Upfront With Everyone

While you can pay companies to remove negative marks from your credit history, they can often show up later during the underwriting process. If you’ve gone through all of the steps, this can throw a wrench into your ability to finish the sale.

Realtors or lenders might find that they need to do more research before they can work with you. Instead, be honest with everyone about financial issues you’ve had.

If you’ve recovered your credit history since a bad default, lenders and brokers may reward you for your honesty.

5. Be Quick With Your Paperwork

There’s a lot of paperwork you’ll need to present to complete the purchase of your house. You’ll need at least two years of tax returns as well as any recent paystubs and W-2 forms.

If you’re paying child support or alimony, you’ll need to bring those forms along as well.

You can expedite your home closing process by having everything in order from day one.

Create a PDF or other digital version of the paperwork that you can forward to anyone who needs it the moment they ask for it.

Also have paper versions together in case they’re a little more traditional.

6. Don’t Make Major Changes To Your Situation

Once you’ve decided that it’s time to buy a house, you need to keep your credit and financial situations stable. If you apply for a new credit line, buy a car, or start moving your money around, you’ll end up raising flags on your credit report.

Timing is everything with buying. Once you’ve got a great price and a great preapproved financing option from your lender, changes to your credit could end up pouring that work down the drain.

If you’ve worked hard to get a damaged credit history in order, you could throw everything into disorder with one credit card application.

You need to present the best version of your credit situation when you’re applying with a lender. Just because you’ve been preapproved, doesn’t mean that anything is written in stone.

7. Be At The Home Inspection

Every home needs to be inspected before its sold and you should be very interested in seeing what the inspector finds.

During the inspection, you can see any possible issues that could arise in the first couple of years after signing for your home. If the roof could have an issue or the inspector finds issues with wiring, you could see if that could be deducted from the total price.

Any major repairs will be coming out of your pocket once you own the home. Rather than have to bear that burden, see if can be eased by a lower price from the buyer.

8. Bring An ID and Certified Check

On the day of the closing, you’ll need a certified check and your photo ID for your lender.

While you could wire money, this can cause delays and end up wasting time during the closing process. Everyone will be much better off when they can get a check in their hand on the day of the signing.

On the big day, celebrate with everyone who helped you. If you’re looking for a great closing gift idea for realtors, think about flowers or a monogrammed keychain.

The Home Closing Process Needs To Be Fast

If you got a great rate and a great price, but still haven’t closed on the house, anything could happen.

Someone could come along and offer more than you and the buyer could just as easily sell it to them. Not having your items in order could cause you to lose out on your dream house during the home closing process.

If you’re ready to find the right house for you and your family, contact us to make sure you’re prepared for the best financing and purchasing options.