Page 21 - Harvey Goodman Realtor

Home Buying Guide
What happens when you’re under Contract
Once the seller accepts your offer, you will enter the escrow period. There are two important elements to this period. The first is you will arrange financing if you are planning to use a loan to purchase the home. Your lender will start the process of getting the final approval for your loan. They will work with escrow to get the data they need about costs and present you with a Good Faith Estimate of your costs and terms of the loan. The lender will also order a formal appraisal of value. The appraisal value must match or exceed the amount you offered for the home or the lender will not be able to lend the full value you are expecting. The next section will discuss contingencies in more detail.
The other major portion of the escrow period is the time for you to do your final due diligence and investigations of the home condition. The seller will provide for your review, a complete disclosure of issues they are aware of within the home and neighborhood. Until you remove contingencies, you can still cancel the purchase without any financial penalty, so this is the time to check out the community, the home, and other factors that will affect your enjoyment of the property.
At the end of the escrow period, you will have made multiple small decisions which all lead to closing on your new home.
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