Realty Complete Buying a Home |
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When You
Find Your Home Once you
find the home you want to buy, you
will need to write up an offer. Your agent
will normally assist you in this process.
You will also normally need to write up a check at that time for the
earnest money deposit. If your offer
is accepted, the deposit check will be cashed at that time, so be prepared to
spend that money by the time you think you will be ready to put in an offer
on a house. An earnest money deposit is money to show good faith; that
you definitely plan on going through with the purchase. It will be applied towards downpayment and
closing costs if you go through with the purchase. If you do not purchase the house, and it is not your fault, you
are entitled to get the deposit back.
The process for returning a deposit varies from state to state. If you do not purchase the home and it is
your fault, you could lose the deposit. The amount of the deposit is generally customary in an area
(although the deposit is still negotiable), so it may be different depending
on where you are moving. You may need
as much as 5% of the purchase price.
The larger the deposit is, the more impressive your offer will be, so
if you are afraid you might not get that house you really want, this is a
good way of improving your odds. Plus
it’s money you will be spending in two months anyway. If your deposit is too low, you may be
throwing away your chance of getting that house. After your offer is accepted, you will have a relatively
short period of time to apply for financing and get your home inspection
done. You will probably be writing
checks on both of these occasions, so make sure you leave yourself enough to
cover both of those. Be careful with
your deadlines. If you schedule your
loan application on the last possible day and something bad happens, you
could jeopardize the contract. Take
note that many times the deadline for the home inspection is to get the house
inspected AND request any corrections to be made based on the
inspection. If you wait until the
last day to get it inspected, you won’t get your request for corrections to
the seller in time. continued |