How Fast Can Escrow Close?

How Fast Can Escrow Close?

You’ve accepted an offer on your house and gone into escrow. How long will the home closing process take?

If you’re looking to sell your house and close the deal fast, you might be wondering how long the paperwork and legal details will take. Completing the legal process that the seller and buyer have entered into together to make the sale final is called closing escrow. Here’s a what to know about how escrow works, and how quickly it can happen.

How long does it take to close on a house?

According to ICE Mortgage Technologies, the average time to close a home purchase was 42 days as of April 2023. Of course, the time it takes to sell a house and close escrow can vary widely, and depends a lot on the kind of real estate transaction involved. A standard open-market sale, using a traditional real estate agent and with a buyer financing through a mortgage lender, can take several weeks to a few months or more. In an off-market sale, in which a buyer is paying cash and purchasing the house as-is, the escrow process timeline can be a matter of mere days to a few weeks.

What is escrow?

Escrow is a legal arrangement between the seller and buyer, overseen by a neutral third party such as an escrow officer or company or a closing attorney. Your escrow agents will hold earnest money until the transaction is complete, handle the paperwork, and arrange for all parties to sign the necessary documents to finalize the home sale. The escrow period is the time between the accepted offer and the final document signing which closes the sale. How long escrow takes depends in part of how quickly you, as the seller, want to close, as well as on any title, financing, or inspection issues that might arise.

How to open an escrow account

If you’re working with a traditional real estate agent on your home buying process, that agent will advise you on enlisting the help of an attorney who— along with the buyer’s attorney and possibly a private escrow company — will handle the details of opening escrow for you. In a for-sale-by-owner (FSBO) or off-market sale, you might have to seek out a real estate attorney for assistance and manage these details yourself.

One of the benefits of selling your house off-market in the Sundae marketplace is that we handle the entire home sale process for you —including opening an escrow account promptly after you’ve accepted an offer on your house.

What can cause closing delays?

One of the most common reasons a home sale gets delayed in escrow is when home buyers are using conventional loans to finance the purchase, and they hit a snag. The buyer’s lender might find a problem with the appraisal not matching the home’s purchase price, or there might be something in the buyer’s personal finances or credit-worthiness — first-time buyers, for instance, might lack adequate credit history.

Other things that can delay closing, or even cause the pending sale to fail completely, are issues that arise during inspection that the buyers consider deal-breakers. Major problems such as foundation, roof, electrical, or plumbing issues can send buyers and sellers back to the negotiating table to revisit the buyer’s offer, or could even cause the buyer to walk away.

An off-market, as-is, all-cash deal is a way to preempt delays such as these, and could be a smart choice when you need a fast closing timeline.

What are the advantages of a fast closing?

If you’re ready to move on, speed and convenience might matter more to you than getting the highest possible dollar for your home. Maybe you already have an accepted offer on a new home, and need the proceeds from your current home to finalize the deal. Maybe you have to relocate quickly for a job. Or maybe you’ve been through personal hardship such as divorce or death in the family, and need a closing date fast so you can move on. In any of those cases, an as-is sale for cash means escrow will move smoothly and quickly and can be closed in a matter of a few days to weeks.

If you are located in Florida or Georgia and are ready to sell your home, consider calling Homeinc. Homeinc has been purchasing homes for cash throughout Florida and Georgia for over a decade. Homeinc’s team of licensed agents can walk you through a risk-free property analysis to determine whether or not it makes sense for you to sell your home for cash. www.homeinc.com 888-850-2636

By Team Sundae