Planning Ultimate Specifics for Completing A Real Estate Deal

Planning Ultimate Specifics for Completing A Real Estate Deal

by Amanda Marie

It is important to recognize that even after the purchaser has made an Offer to Purchase your for sale by owner house and you have accepted the offer, making it an official Sales Agreement, there are still occurrences that could cause the sale to fall through. If you plan ahead with the intent of preventing such glitches, most of them will not arise. There will sometimes be some immediate problems that must be dealt with at the time of notice. For this reason, continuous monitoring of the sale is needed until the final closing. The purchaser of the home is only allowed to back out of the sale for valid reasons. As the seller, you should make sure not to allow any of those reasons to occur. Here are some examples:

The first issue that could arise is the appraised value of the house as calculated by the lender. If the appraised value is significantly less than the agreed upon sales price or asking price, the lender typically will not approve the loan. This may mean the purchaser is scrambling around searching for another lender, or asking for a reduction in the purchase price. Alternatively, the purchaser may request you to carry a small second mortgage 'under the table' so to speak, although this practice is illegal in some jurisdictions.

You can prevent the issue from arising by obtaining a market appraisal of your for sale by owner home prior to selling and using that information to arrive at the asking price for your house. A good baseline asking price is that of comparable houses sold in your neighborhood.

The purchaser or the lender may request or mandate certain inspections on the home if included within the sales contract. The purchaser must pay for these inspections. However, if problems are found with the areas inspected, then it is up to the seller to fix and pay for the repairs. When the home is being inspected, you should plan to available to answer any questions that may arise. Examples of inspections commonly done are to check the condition of the roof, the basement, the heating and cooling system, or the quality of the water.

Scheduling any potential inspections prior to listing your for sale by owner home lets you complete the necessary repairs so that the purchaser will see only a 'clean bill of health' on the home.

In order to ensure that there is not a last minute delay in the sale of your home, you may want to consider hiring a professional surveyor to set the boundary lines on the home. There is often some confusion about where boundaries lie, especially with rural properties.

You will need to complete several other tasks before the date of closing. You should have a final payoff on any existing financing on the home you are selling. This will be part of the closing transactions. A packet of warranties, service records and instruction manuals for any appliances or systems remaining with the home will be very helpful for the buyers. Arrange with the utility companies, telephone company and garbage collection service to end service on the closing date or before and provide them with a final billing address.

Avoid troublesome delays in sale of your for sale by owner house by specific advance planning and by careful monitoring of each step in the home sale closing process.