4 Tips to Help You Close Escrow Faster

Buying or selling a home is rarely a straightforward process. It is something that requires a lot of planning and attention to detail given the scale of the endeavor, yet everyone involved always wants to get the process completed as quick as possible.

Even then, it is important to take the time to get things right, otherwise the process may end up taking even longer, or worse, fall apart completely. Closing escrow is the final hurdle for buying a property, and while it’s important to take the necessary steps to do it properly, there are ways to help you close escrow faster.

1. Pre-Approved Financing

Financing is easily the most time-consuming aspect of buying property, so it helps to do what you can to speed this process up. Of course, you want to get the best mortgage possible so you shouldn’t rush the process of shopping potential lenders, but it’s possible to get pre-approved financing by being diligent in your efforts.

For instance, if you do all your financing steps before opening escrow you can close much quicker, as the average funding application can take several days or weeks to process. Lenders will need to review current credit, earnings, and assets before making their decision, so if you manage to get pre-approved before opening escrow you save yourself a few weeks of waiting around.

2. Have Savings Ready

During escrow, the fees begin to pile up, and the longer it takes to pay these fees the longer escrow will last. From down payments to escrow money to closing costs, the fees quickly add up when buying a home, so you should have plenty of savings to cover all these costs.

Therefore, you want to have enough money long before you plan on opening escrow. While most people dive into savings to cover the costs, it helps to put more away for several months before opening escrow, as having enough finances on hand make the entire process much quicker and straight-forward.

3. Request Early Closing

Most closing deadlines are either 30 or 60 days and when this number is agreed upon everyone works to meet these deadlines. So, if the closing deadline is 30 days, expect everyone involved to work towards that deadline – it will be rare for it to be closed quicker.

What you can do however, is to request an early closing before entering escrow. For example, if you were to set a three-week deadline in the sale contract, all parties must work towards meeting this deadline. Even if this is missed, those that fail to meet the deadline are held accountable, so it gives more urgency and often leads to quicker closing of escrow.

4. Prompt Responses

Your real estate agent will require plenty of documents and fees over the course of escrow, so the quicker you respond to these requests the quicker escrow closes. It’s simple yet overlooked, with many people taking additional time to get money and paperwork organized, so always be as quick as possible with your responses.

This is why it helps to get a pre-approved mortgage and have all your money saved and ready to use, as you can meet all real estate requests as soon as you receive them.

Inland Empire Escrow  provides escrow services for a diverse variety of real estate transactions.  With offices in Chino CA and San Bernardino CA, we quickly and professionally service all the surrounding cities such as Chino Hills, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga, Upland, Riverside, Redlands, Colton, Grand Terrace, Yucaipa, and more.  To hear more about our escrow services for residential, mobile home, short sale, REO, bulk/business sale, 1031 Exchange, or agricultural escrow, contact us today at (800) 917-9387.