How long and what happens at a house closing?

Liviathan

Platinum Member
Feb 21, 2001
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Closing on a house, haven't really asked the mortgage guy what's the deal. Wondering if all the people here with the experience can share it with me.

Thanks.
 

y2kc

Platinum Member
Sep 2, 2000
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You and the seller sign a ton of paperwork (presented by your agent\lawyer\broker) and then you go home (if it goes smoothly). my closing took an hour, must have signed my name 50 times that day (felt like it at least).
 

franksta

Golden Member
Jun 6, 2001
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Originally posted by: y2kc
You and the seller sign a ton of paperwork (presented by your agent\lawyer\broker) and then you go home (if it goes smoothly). my closing took an hour, must have signed my name 50 times that day (felt like it at least).

QFT. We bought our house 2 years ago and that's pretty much how it happened. I couldn't stop making Harvey Birdman jokes since the pen I was using had "...attorney at law" on it. :laugh:
 

b0mbrman

Lifer
Jun 1, 2001
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At my official closing, everything had already been taken care of, so all I did was sign a bunch of forms
 

HBalzer

Golden Member
Jul 17, 2005
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You walk in take it up the a$$ for an hour or 2, where they try and milk more money out of you and your screwed because your options are pretty much take the house or leave it, then you sign some papers and leave.

That?s how it happened to me. Of course I didn't get the final amount until I was there. I kept calling to get it finally they said don't worry get the certified check for the amount we estimated it will be within a thousand of that. Turned out to be like $4,000 more, no wonder they didn?t want to tell me. There should be a law against that sh!t.

I was screwed by the builder, Wells Fargo, and the lawyer but by the time the house was built it was worth like $60,000 more than what I paid so I couldn?t risk loosing the house.
 

BillGates

Diamond Member
Nov 30, 2001
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I am closing on my first house on Friday and figured it'd take about an hour. Good luck!
 

farmercal

Golden Member
Mar 23, 2000
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It's not that bad but just cross your fingers and hope everything is taken care of and ready to go when you get there. We sold a house in Georgia and live here in Florida and had to drive 7 hours for the closing. We were supposed to close at 1PM and didn't sign the paperwork until 7PM. Nightmare, but at least sold the house in the end. Good Luck.
 

GuitarDaddy

Lifer
Nov 9, 2004
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Lets see, except for the part where they

Bleed you with leaches, subject you to electroshock therapy, and oh yeah the anal probing.

it's not to bad

 

AbsolutDealage

Platinum Member
Dec 20, 2002
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Mine took about an hour and a half. Had to bring 2 cashier's checks and sign my name ~50 times. Your lawyer should have looked at all the paperwork beforehand (make sure he has), so you should just be able to go down the list signing everything.

They didn't know exactly how much money I would need (hence the 2 checks), but it was within the estimated range they gave me. They cut me a check for the overage and that was about it.
 

ValkyrieofHouston

Golden Member
Sep 26, 2005
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Originally posted by: Liviathan
Closing on a house, haven't really asked the mortgage guy what's the deal. Wondering if all the people here with the experience can share it with me.

Thanks.


Well first off what state do you live in. They do closings very differently up north vs the south and west areas.

Secondly you should have a real estate agent that walks you through the process of closing.
If it is a title company handling the closing process, they are an impartial party who simply takes the closing instructions from your mortgage company, plus the real estate contract, puts all the fees and such onto what is called a HUD (settlement statement) which gives you a break down of what your closing costs are, if you will be getting money, or giving money at the closing. In addition it also discloses the sellers side as well. It will show all your mortgage fees, and disclose any title company fees including your title insurance premium.

At closing the escrow officer / closer should give you a brief explanation of each closing document that you will be signing. Most of those documents all come from your mortgage company. You have to sign them, or the deal will not close or be funded. You can't negotiate anything in those docs. This is when you need to have your mortgage company representative explain some of the docs prior to closing.

You can request a copy of all the closing documents prior to your closing. Make a verbal and written request to the title company and to the mortgage company. Also if possible, ask for a preliminary HUD prior to closing. But keep in mind the HUD will be preliminary, and subject to change at closing.

Good luck, and congrats!

PS.. I was an escrow officer for a number of years and worked for several title companies that is why I know this stuff.
 

Nyati13

Senior member
Jan 2, 2003
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When I closed on my house, everything had already been argued and set beforehand, including price, downpayment, closing costs, escrow, tax, insurance, etc. I just sat there and signed my name a bunch of times, and then handed over my certified check. It took about an hour.
The hard part was withdrawing the funds in the certified check. I actually became sick to my stomache when I pulled out the $12K from my savings account.
 

brtspears2

Diamond Member
Nov 16, 2000
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You meet up with a very overpriced notary. The escrow people will have your loan and home docs, a few hundred of them for you to go over and sign (more like sign, you could never read them all). The escrow folks will tell you to bring $xx,xxx, the mortgage folks will say $yy,yyy dollars. Then the escrow people will go "wtf, it is $xx,xxx dollars, you call your loan guy who ran all the numbers, and he goes $yy,yyy dollars".

After you are done haggling, you sign and sign away. Docs get submitted to the loan company, they fund, it gets recorded and you get the home.
 

ValkyrieofHouston

Golden Member
Sep 26, 2005
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Originally posted by: brtspears2
You meet up with a very overpriced notary. The escrow people will have your loan and home docs, a few hundred of them for you to go over and sign (more like sign, you could never read them all). The escrow folks will tell you to bring $xx,xxx, the mortgage folks will say $yy,yyy dollars. Then the escrow people will go "wtf, it is $xx,xxx dollars, you call your loan guy who ran all the numbers, and he goes $yy,yyy dollars".

After you are done haggling, you sign and sign away. Docs get submitted to the loan company, they fund, it gets recorded and you get the home.



LOL... pretty much!

There use to be this cartoon on the wall of my office and it always made me laugh. It has a row boat with a Realtor, a Lender, an Appraiser, and a Surveyor, a the buyers and sellers and the Title Escrow person all in it, with the Escrow person at the head of the boat. All of them have oars ready to row the boat where it needs to go... and the Escrow person says "Ready, Set, Go!" and everybody starts beating each other with their oars instead rowing...LOL

Then on the last scene of the cartoon, the Escrow officer says, ok let's reschedule a new closing date...

Funny cartoon.

With all the hold ups at the Title company, everybody points fingers at everybody else when things don't get done the way they should or by the closing day.

Gawd what a pressure cooker job that was! So glad I am out of that!
 

Buck Armstrong

Platinum Member
Dec 17, 2004
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Its pretty simple. You're escorted into a room, where you're presented with about 23,000 pages of legalese bvllshit that is incomprehensible even to the mortgage rep, and each page requires your signature in 4-5 different places. At some point, you're shown a document that reveals how badly you've been screwed by the seller (payoff amount on the house and seller's profit), who in turn has been raped by the realtor (7% for unlocking the fvcking door), and then you hand over half your life's savings. 6 hours later, you're free to go eat and then regurgitate lunch, followed by a week of buyer's remorse. If you're lucky, you at least get immediate possession of your new house.

Trust me, its a blast.