St Louis Real Estate

Your loan has been approved, the building inspection is done and the repairs are complete and the day of closing has arrived!  Congratulations!  You're almost home!

The first thing that I'm going to recommend to you is to take a deep breath.  Relax, everyday, all around the country thousands of people are sitting right where you are now, getting ready to close.  If everybody has done their job correctly, everything should go smooth and you'll be in and out of the title company in no more than a couple of hours.

That said, there is probably not too many transactions where more people have their finger in your pie than in a real estate transaction.  There is you, maybe a spouse or significant other, the seller, maybe his/her significant other, family and friends of the buyer, family and friends of the seller, the listing agent, the selling agent, the loan officer, the processor, the appraiser, the underwriter, the funding department at the lender, the building inspector, the surveyor, the Fed X people, the title company processor, the title company examiner and finally the closer.  

Oh!  And this is only the people involved in YOUR transaction.  Don't forget, your deal might require the closing of another property which in turn might be dependent upon the successful closing of another property.  So, you might have to multiply the number of people involved with your transaction by 2, 3, 4 or even more times!  If one of these people's kids get a cold and have to be taken out of school, your transaction might not close today!

It's amazing that any real estate transaction goes smoothly (and you were thinking about going FSBO!  Huh?).  Actually, an amazingly high percentage of the time, things fall into place as they should and things actually do smoothly.  If they do, then great!  If not, don't freak out!  999 times out of a thousand these deals close.

What You Need To Bring

1)  Yourself and any other signatories to the contract.

2)  State issued photo ID.

3)  Certified funds in the form of a cashier's check or money order.  Funds can also be wired into the title companies account ahead of time from a recognized financial institution.

4)  Copies of everything that you have given to the lender (there is a invisible creature who haunts mortgage companies and eats documents.  Bring your copies just in case he ate one of yours!)

5)  A good book.  Just because your transaction is going to go smoothly, doesn't mean the other two that are in the closing rooms is going to.  It's not unusual to have a closing delayed.  As mentioned above, if your transaction is dependent upon another transaction closing, a delay in any of the transactions in line before yours can cause your closing to be delayed.

6)  A positive attitude.  Closings can be stressful and as mentioned above, it's not unusual to experience delays and out and out screw ups.  Every effort is being made to insure that your closing goes as smoothly as possible, but even with these efforts a delay might occur.  Freaking out and getting angry seldom helps (sometimes it does, but those times are few and far between).

7)  A few extra bucks to go out and celebrate!  You've just bought a home!

Getting Ready To Move And Moving (Next)

Click Here To Return To An Overview Of The Home Buying Process

Click Here To Return To Buyer's Information And Tools

Click Here To Return To Main Page

Click Here To Return To Top Of Page

Click Here To Contact Us