What Happens After We Find A House To Buy?

I notice  that there is often confusion when it comes to the process of buying a house. When do you do a home inspection? When do you get an appraisal done? Who orders them? All very common questions! Here’s a quick ‘n dirty version of the process:

Once you pick a property you want to write an offer on, we write the contract to include certain “contingencies.” Contingencies come with deadlines based on the date your offer is accepted by the seller (in the DC, Virginia, and Maryland, we call this the Date of Ratification). You don’t perform any of these inspections prior to contract acceptance (unless we’re in a very particular situation where you may be competing against a pile of other offers). Once all of these contingencies are met and released, you’ll proceed to settlement, where you’ll receive the keys and be official new homeowner!

Maybe this will make it easier:

Now keep in mind, this overview ONLY includes the steps you do with ME as an agent. On the side you’ll have to complete a loan application once you select your lender, comply with all of their requests for paperwork, credit check, underwriting, etc. Also during this process, once you select a title company or real estate attorney to represent you, I will send them a copy of the contract to get started on the title work to make sure there are no problems with the title report of the property. But as far as YOUR responsibilities as the buyer, the overview above is what you need to focus on!