We have an accepted contract, now what?

Congratulations, You have an accepted offer, here are the next steps.

1. Inspection:  We have 10 days to call your inspector, get him over to the house, do his inspection, receive his reports, and respond. You will choose which inspections you want to get if any, but your options are 1. Building inspection (usually $300 -$400) 2. Termite Inspection (usually $75) 3. Radon inspection (usually $125) 4. Sewer lateral line inspection (usually $125).Your response choices include either walking away from the deal and receiving your earnest money back, asking for money to fix certain things yourself, asking for the sellers to fix things, or tell them everything is fine. Typically the sellers will have 10 days to respond to your inspection resolution requests.During the typical initial 10 day inspection period, your Hermann London agent will call your lender and title company to introduce ourselves as your REALTOR® and give them copies of all paperwork and our contact information. It is our duty to help them make the entire process as smooth and effortless as possible for you. Once the inspection is done, and you are satisfied with the resolution negotiations, we can proceed to the next steps.
2. Earnest Money: On your offer, we designated how much earnest money you will be putting down. Once we have an accepted contract we need to get this money to the party we designated. Typically this will be your title company. You can give this personal check to your REALTOR®, or mail it directly to the title company. If closing is less than 10 days from now, the check needs to be cashier’s check directly from your bank.
3. Appraisal: After the inspection contingency is resolved, your Hermann London agent will call your lender and tell them to now order the Appraisal. An appraisal is a bank sending out their trusted 3rd party to verify the house is worth what they are lending you. We wait until the inspection resolution is completed to avoid spending $300.00 on this until we know you are buying the property for sure.
4. Title Work: Your Hermann London agent will call the title company and tell them to start their title work, and also get the survey done. By this time, you will have signed a “title and survey work order form” which authorizes the title company to proceed with their work, and will identify if you want a spot or stake survey done. Most people get a spot survey done unless they intend to put up a fence.
5. Insurance: Once we have an accepted contract call your insurance agent, or call Mike Reedy at 314-444-4863 with Crane Insurance or Mike Ehrlich with Crawford-Butz at 314-605-9622. You just need to make sure that your house is insurable. Tell them the closing date, so they know when to start coverage. Get a quote you are comfortable with, and give the insurance agents name and number to your Mortgage person, and your Hermann London agent. This should all be completed withing the first 10 days of having an accepted contract, or a different time if you have asked for it. Getting an insurance quote is free, and the options can be complicated, there are different levels of coverage, so make sure you are comfortable with your final decision. Also, you can ask your insurance agent for a “C.LU.E.” The report, which can tell you if the house has previously had an insurance claim for something like a Fire, etc. This works as another form of getting disclosures about the property you are purchasing.
6. Plan Ahead:
   Either call all of your utility companies or use a company like http://www.allconnect.com/ to get everything transferred into your name. The title company will take care of the sewer company for you. Your Hermann London agent can find out from the selling agent which companies the previous seller used for services like trash, cable, etc. Don’t worry, typically the utilities will not be turned off immediately when the seller moves out. You can usually call the day before or the day of closing and not have a gap in service, but on most contracts you can do it within 4 days of closing.
7. Final Walk Through:
   1-4 days before closing we can meet at the house and walk through it, to make sure they did not damage the property, and that they have fixed everything we agreed they would. Usually, nothing happens at this time, but it’s a nice opportunity for you to measure rooms and decide how you will set up the furniture. If something we have agreed upon in the inspection resolution has not been completed, your Hermann London agent will contact the other agent, and get it fixed. If you deem necessary, closing can be postponed until the issue is fixed.
8. Closing:
   We will try to make the closing in the morning so that there is time to get the money transferred to the sellers that day, and you can take possession that day. On closing day please show up with your driver’s licenses, and a cashiers check for however much your lender tells you it needs to be for. They likely won’t tell you this amount until a day or two before closing. On closing day, we will meet at the title company. Your REALTOR®, Lender, and Title company representative will all be there.

Have more real estate questions?

LET’S TALK

Posted in: Q&A

Back to: Real Estate Questions