Buying a House: Now what happens?

[IrishMeg]

*Disclaimer* I've never bought a house before. I know absolutely nothing about this process. Feel free to talk to me like I am a 10 year old! Some 10 year olds probably know more about this than I do! :D

FH and I put an offer on a house on Saturday. They accepted our offer today. So now what happens?I know he has to call to set up the home inspection but thats all I know. I just don't get all of this stuff. What is the timeline of things that will happen from here on out? Our closing date is 10/25.

ETA-Is it normal that I am totally freaked out about the fact that we are buying a house?

[greenbunny]

There are several kinds of inspections you can opt to do, or they may be required by your homeowner's insurance. For example, termite inspections and radon inspections. If you do not yet have homeowner's insurance, set that up, so they can tell you what they require to insure the home. They will likely ask you a bunch of questions about the house and may even send someone out to see it (my company did this).

Check your contract, often they require you to have all the inspections done within a certain number of days. I found the contract so wordy and involved (this from someone for whom words are a living!) that we had our realtor write up a really simple timeline/checklist for us with the due dates for all our required actions.

If the house passes inspection but has some issues, go back to your realtor and discuss your options. You may want to request an allowance for repairs or else ask the sellers to make the repairs before closing. I don't think they can be forced to do anything unless it doesn't meet code, but then I think you might be able to back out of buying the house depending on the size of the repairs. For example, during our inspection the one door was hung wrong so it was easily broken open and the estimate was $500 for repair. The owners said tough crap, so our choices were to accept it or not buy the house.

I think a lot of these things are based on local regulations, so your best bet is to work with your realtor and s/he should be able to hold your hand through the next month, getting involved as much or as little as you need.

Congratulations!

[polarama]

Congratulations! :)

For us, our realtor was really helpful so you may want to check with yours if you liked working with them.

It also depends on your state. Based on my experience (we are going through this right now) I would guess that you should:

1) Line up a home inspection

2) Talk to your lender about next steps. Most likely they will need to schedule an appraisal.

3) Talk to your insurance agent about homeowners' insurance. To finalize insurance, they need an appraisal. For us, our lender had our insurance agent work with them directly to coordinate the process b/c the lender also needs proof of insurance so they sort of go together.

4) In VA, I had to pick a title insurance company and settlement company. I guess here the same company can do both, but I think this is one of the first things I had to do (the contract goes to the settlement company right away, and as other things are done, all the different parties send their paperwork to them as well).

ETA: Oh my gosh, totally normal to freak out! :) I freak out 5 times a day ever since the contract was accepted.

[honeygirl]

Hi Meghann,

No it is totally normal to be freaked out about a HUGE and MAJOR purchase. You know, good stress and bad stress at the same time.

Anyway, I was so nervous when I bought my first place and very confused. DH and I are closing on our second home this week so I can relate. I'm not an expert on these things but here is what I know:

You have an inspector come out and give you a report (you pay for this). If something fishy/concerning comes up in the inspection then you have a right to back out of the deal or to talk to the seller about making changes (ie - mold, broken air-conditioning, basically anything not disclosed by the seller).

The house also needs to be appraised. If the appraisal price doesn't match your paying price then you have a problem. You can either back out or pay the difference in cash.

All of these back and forth things have time frames. I.e. - You have up to 10 days to get a inspection, then the seller has 7 days to respond to any problems, etc (actual number of days depends on the parties involved).

We decided to have a 3 week closing, so everything has been RUSHED.

Good luck!

-Anne

[IrishMeg]

Thank you! Your help is greatly, greatly appreciated!! I'm glad to know that I'm not totally neurotic by being scared/excited/worried. You name it and we're pretty much feeling it.

I'm going to pass this info along to FH right now! Thank you!! :D

ETA-Congratulations, Anne, on your new home!

[Oakley]

CONGRATULATIONS!!! Yes, it's very overwhelming and very scary- but so worth it!

A lot of good info has been posted, so I won't add any more other to say that your realtor will be a very good source of into. We really relied on our first realtor to walk us through the process. There's also a ton of info online.

Another thing you'll want to be doing is to get all your personal info ready for the mortgage- bank statements, W-2's, pay stubs, etc.

Good luck!

[1MegMeg]

Meghann - Everyone else has given great advice, but as a local, I just wanted to make a special point about homeowner's insurance. I *highly* suggest that you start calling around and looking into it now, rather than later. Since we live in a coastal county in FL, and it's hurricane season, it's a PITA getting insurance. When we bought our house last June the company that we have our auto insurance through wasn't even writing policies in FL.

I don't mean to scare you or add more stress, but I know that mortgage lenders require proof of Homeowner's insurance at the closing so I just thought I would let you know the local scoop. Hehe!

Definitely PM me if you have any specific questions or anything. :)

[IrishMeg]

Thanks, Meg! My mom and I just talked about this at dinner tonight. FH is going to get on it immediately. It does have me kind of worried now! :(