The day is finally near! All the inspections are done, the utilities have been ordered to transfer over, and the bank has all their required documents. Here are those important final steps that take you from home buyer, to home owner.
A few days before closing you’ll receive your final closing disclosures (called CDs). These summarize your loan, closing costs, and final amount due. You’ll typically wire the closing amount a couple of days prior to closing. This ensures there are no delays on closing day. Always make sure to call the title company to verify the amount and account number before wiring funds.
On closing day we typically do a final walk-through of the property right before closing. This is more a formality than anything: it’s a last check to make sure the home is still standing, the sellers didn’t tear the place up on their move out, and all the work agreed to in the home inspection has been done. For any repairs, you would have already received invoices from licensed professionals.
After the walk through, we’ll go to the closing at the title company. You’ll be signing a TON of documents. There are the final CDs that are all the details of your loan, then a lot of pages promising to pay the lender back, explaining what happens if you don’t pay them back, and certifying that you didn’t lie on your application. All the rest are standard, non-negotiable, documents. Closing usually takes about 45 minutes for the buyer. Once you’re done signing, you’ll receive keys to the property and it’s all yours.
It’s a good idea to schedule move-in after closing day. There can and have been delays. Having moving trucks outside while paperwork is being sorted out makes things more stressful than necessary.