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Each step on the home buying timeline includes a summary of the process. Following each step puts you one step closer to your goal of homeownership. Once you’ve secured financing, you’re ready to complete the purchase of the home. You’ll hopefully waste less time and keep your heartbreaks to a minimum over homes you can’t afford.
Our advice is based on experience in the mortgage industry and we are dedicated to helping you achieve your goal of owning a home. We may receive compensation from partner banks when you view mortgage rates listed on our website. Each post is edited and fact-checked by industry experts to ensure that we are providing accurate information for our readers.
How Long Does It Take To Buy a House?
Whole process takes about a month, can be as quick as 15 days if you have all the docs and stuff ready that underwriting will require. A final walkthrough is an opportunity for homebuyers to inspect the house before the official closing. In sum, the final walkthrough also allows the buyer to see that the seller has made any repairs they promised to make. Homebuyers can request house repairs before buying, which is standard across California. A buyer’s agent can request repairs for consideration to the seller’s agent.
The closing typically takes place at your real estate agent’s office or the office of the escrow company or title company handling the paperwork. Come to closing day prepared with your government-issued ID and any requested documents. Bring a cashier’s check for your down payment and be prepared to pay any closing costs. Now all that’s left to do is close escrow and sign the required paperwork. After the mortgage loan has been approved, the buyer’s lender wires the funds to escrow.
Month Home Purchase Plan Packet (Get your clients ready to buy a home in one year!)) for Real Estate Agents
You’ll also have to provide the funds for your down payment and closing costs and show you’ve purchased homeowner’s insurance. The closer to closing you perform the final walkthrough, the better. The later you perform this pre-closing inspection, the more likely the seller has moved out of the property (depending on what’s specified in the contract). When the property is vacant, it’s easy to make sure nothing is missing, and nothing unexpected was left behind. Your lender will require that you buy homeowner’s insurance, but it’s a smart financial move anyway. Your agent will consult the multiple listing service, or MLS, looking for homes that meet your criteria in your area.
FHA loans are a great option for buyers looking for a loan with low down payment and less restrictive credit score requirements. These time frames can vary, as some lenders close quicker, some buyers take longer to choose a home, and some sellers take longer to accept an offer. Then, the typical buyer tours nine homes over eight weeks before finding their ideal house. Then depending on the lender you use, you could be in the house within a day or two of closing.
Read Our Homebuying Glossary
Sellers aren’t required to respond within a specific period of time, but most will either accept, reject, or counter your offer within 24 to 48 hours. In cases of multiple offers or a foreclosure, things could take a bit longer. It’s hard to predict how long it will take to find the right home. You could very well get lucky and find your dream home on day one—or it could take several months.
When you’re touring multiple homes, it’s easy to confuse different features or concerns so take notes as you’re touring. Don’t forget to pick your agent’s brain and ask for their input. Once all the closing documents are signed, you’ll get the keys to your new home. This long, complicated trip you began mapping out months ago is almost complete. An appraisal is a neutral opinion of the house’s fair market value, based on a physical inspection and analysis of comparable sales.
Home Buyer PacketIt’s important to understand the difference between being prequalified and preapproved. Pre-qualification is just an estimate of what size loan you might qualify for. Lenders will simply ask you a few questions about your income and debts and then give you a ballpark number. Since they haven’t seen any paperwork, they don’t know if there are issues with your credit that could disqualify you. While buying a house obligates you to years of monthly mortgage payments, it also requires some upfront money. You can’t have accurate information removed from your report, even if it’s negative.
However, when you finally find The House, you may need to act fast when you make an offer. If you wait to apply for a mortgage until you’ve found a house you want to bid on, you could lose out to someone who’s already preapproved. “If you want to buy a house, you need to have money saved up,” says April Mason, an agent in Corpus Christi, Texas, who has completed 24% more sales than the average agent in her market. You can get a loan with a smaller down payment, but you’ll likely have to pay for mortgage insurance, which will increase your monthly mortgage bill. It takes a lot of planning and preparation, possibly even some soul-searching, to decide what’s the right move in your situation. A start-to-finish timeline showing every step to buy a house, and how long you can expect it all to take.
With these estimates, you can move into a new home in four months or less. Escrow protects all the relevant parties by ensuring that no funds or property change hands until all conditions in the agreement have been met. In summary, once both parties complete the agreement’s requirements, escrow is closed. Stay in touch with your agent and financial consultant during this process.
While this process usually takes around 10 to 15 days, it may take longer depending on your financial circumstances. As soon as you pay for your appraisal and lock in your interest rate, your lender will order an appraisal. This is to determine the fair market value of the home you’re about to purchase—in other words, how much it’s really worth. Among other things, appraisers review recent comparable sales of similar homes in your area (aka “comps”) to determine the home’s true value. An appraisal is important to ensure that neither you nor your lender are paying more than the home is worth.
Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat is the five-part BRRRR real estate investing strategy that makes financial freedom more attainable than ever. In this book, author and investor David Greene shares the exact systems he used to scale his real estate business from buying two houses per year to buying two houses per month using BRRRR. Buyers have seven days after an inspection to decide to purchase or walk away from the sale. If you choose to waive the home inspection contingency in your offer, you choose to purchase the home as is. But an inspection is still recommended for your own information.
Home inspectors check out the home’s structure and infrastructure, like the plumbing, electrical wiring, HVAC, roof and other areas, to determine the condition of the home. Counter-offers are common and should even be expected when buying a house. Common counter-offers can include proposed changes to the price, closing date, or purchase contract contingencies. You may go back and forth with the seller a few times before you come to terms you both agree on. Talk with your agent about the terms of your deal and the competition you face to determine an offer price. You and your agent will work together to write and submit the offer letter to the seller’s agent.
To come up with the pre-approval figure, lenders need to verify your assets, which takes time. The best way to speed this process along is to have all your paperwork at the ready. This includes recent pay stubs, federal tax returns, W-2 forms, bank and other asset statements, your credit score and report, proof of employment, and residential history. Once the seller has accepted the offer, the earnest money will be deposited into an escrow account or held by the listing agent.
However, lenders are most interested in how you’ve handled your credit recently, so resolve to do better starting now. Even without a lot of debt, your credit could be a problem if you haven’t always been conscientious about paying your bills. If you have an iffy credit history, the lender is likely to charge a higher interest rate on your mortgage or possibly decide not to issue a loan at all. While you’ll find lots of ways to ballpark your housing budget, the real determiner will be your debt-to-income ratio, or DTI. The lender wants to be sure you can pay back the mortgage plus any other debts you owe, so the bank will calculate your DTI.
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