Selling Your Home? Do These 5 Things as Soon as Escrow Starts

Selling a home can be a complicated and lengthy process, but it doesn’t have to be. If you take care of certain things in a timely and efficient manner as soon as the escrow starts, you can effectively make the home selling process faster.

When selling your home, following are 5 things you should do as soon as escrow starts:

1. Prepare Disclosures

Once the escrow process begins, you will need to complete a list of officially required disclosure forms and send them to your buyer for review. This step should be done in advance when the seller completes the disclosure packet when listing their home instead of waiting until the escrow is opened. However, if you haven’t done that, then it is recommended that you work with the escrow company to manage the process.

2. Pest Inspection

Clearance certifications and pest inspections are often required to close escrows in areas that are affected by termites. To make the escrow process go faster, you should give the pest inspection report to your buyer within one week of accepting the offer. You want to perform pest inspection as quickly as possible so that there aren’t any surprises and the closing of escrow is not delayed.

3. Buyer’s Inspections

Depending on your location, your buyer will generally be given about 10-15 days from the time their offer is accepted to perform their inspections. The number of days for the inspections can be changed by the buyer, so make sure to read your contract in order to confirm the timeline. The inspections can include inspection of roof, pool and spa, electrical and plumbing, HVAC, and an appraisal.

Ideally, sellers should have their home inspected before opening escrow when they start to receive offers. However, if haven’t done this, then it is recommended that you complete the inspections in a timely manner as soon as the escrow starts so that you can reduce or remove the acceptable cancellation period for the buyer and make it hard for them to request repairs as the escrow moves forward.

4. Buyer’s Request for Repairs

During the escrow process, your buyer can request repairs if there are any issues found during the inspections. If you want to speed up the escrow process and sell your home quickly, then it is recommended that you complete any repairs requested by the buyer. By doing this, you will give your buyer less reasons to back out as the escrow moves forward.

5. Contingency Removal

Buyer can back out of escrow without penalty if there is any contingency in a purchase agreement. That’s why it is extremely important that you make sure that the buyer removes their contingencies the moment their period expires. Some of the standard contingencies include load, appraisal, title report, condo disclosures, buyer’s investigation, disclosures/reports including pest report, inspection report, and seller disclosures, sale of buyer’s property, and more.

For sellers, the escrow process is probably the most challenging part. Speeding it up is the way to make sure that your home sells faster. The above-mentioned tips will help you in this regard.

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.