Hey everybody. It’s Chuck again with Agile Property Solutions. I’m in Pasco, Washington right now, but that’s part of Tri-Cities Washington, of course. I want to do a quick video just to explain the process, let’s just say we agree on a price and a lot of people are not really familiar with the real estate sales process because quite honestly, most people only buy and sell real estate maybe once or twice in their life. I guess, I want to run through that real quick and kind of explain what happens.
Let’s say we agree on a price. We’re all good. Okay. Now what? Really, it’s pretty simple. I take the purchase and sale agreement, I deliver it to a local title company and it depends on where I’m doing the deal, but I have pre selected title companies in each city, whether that’s Yakima, Washington, the Tri-Cities Washington area, or if I’m in Spokane, Washington, I’ve got different companies for each one, and these are all licensed real estate escrow operators. Basically, that makes sure that everything is above board and nothing is done shady or anything like that.
What I would do is I would go there with that purchase sale agreement. I would give that to them along with your contact, the seller’s contact info, and what they’re going to do is they pull a report of everything that’s tied to the title of your house, and they will present me that report. If there’s any issues there, then we will reach out to you and work to resolve those issues. A lot of times if it’s a house that’s maybe in disrepair or has been for some time, and maybe the yard has been overgrown, the city sometimes will attach a lien to the property for not keeping up the yard.
Let’s just say that somebody had some work done and they didn’t pay their contractor, or maybe they did pay their contractor, and a lot of times what a contractor will do is that they’ll file a lien against the property when they start work, and then they will forget to release that lien after they’ve been paid. A lot of times the homeowners have no idea that they’ve done this. Contractors do it as a way to make sure that they get paid eventually. That lien has to be taken care of before that house can be transferred to the next owner. We’ll work through those issues.
Basically, what it is that they pull this report and there’s just a number of things that have to be done in order for them to basically proceed with the transaction and for you to sell the house. That process typically takes about two weeks for that to happen, and then they will reach out to you during that two weeks, I guess let’s just say. If you have a loan with a bank, they’re going to reach out to you to get an authorization. It’s just a simple form where they’re going to need you to list out your mortgage account number, if you have it and then an authorization for them to reach out to that bank and get a pay off on your loan, on your behalf.
Another thing that they might do is ask you for the account numbers of your utilities, things like water, sewer, electrical, all of those things have to be paid off at closing. Additionally, if you have property taxes that haven’t been paid, that’ll be something that comes up in the report, but those have to be paid up to. All of these fees, or if there are any, would come directly out of what is due to you at closing. It’s not like you’d have to come up with a bunch of cash before this goes through. It’s just taken out of your proceeds from the sale, and then whatever’s left over, they cut you a check for and give to you.
Once everything is satisfied, they’ve got everything all wrapped up, they will reach out to you for what is called the signing of the final closing documents. Basically, you go through and you sign the statement that shows what fees that they paid and what it costs to do the transaction and that’s the documents, your HUD statement that basically is going to tell you what you’re going to get from the sale, along with a bunch of other things like a statutory warranty deed and stuff like that. There’ll be about, I don’t know, five to eight different documents that you’ll sign.
You sign that and then they’ll arrange for me to come in and sign my side. And then once we both have signed, usually the following day, as long as the funds are there and have been wired to them, it will record and recording is when the sale actually happens. Recording is when it’s actually sent to the county and it’s actually recorded in their system, so that’s what that’s called. At that time after recording, then they will either wire the funds to your account, if that’s how you wanted it, or they’ll cut a check for you to come pick up. And so that’s when you get paid.
There’s no way for you to get paid in cash. I’ve had a lot of people ask me that. That’s just not possible. It’s not something that they do, but as long as you have a bank account, they can wire the funds. If they wire the funds in the morning, it’ll be in there in the afternoon. But if they wire the funds in the afternoon, it won’t be there until the next morning. That’s just what it takes. A check, of course, you can go grab a check, but a lot of times your bank is going to want to hold on to that check for five days and they’ll hold the funds. Fastest way for you to get your money is definitely by wire. That’s pretty much it.
It’s really not a complicated, hard process. Part of the thing that I do with my sellers is essentially I walk them through the whole thing. If for whatever reason, you can’t get to the title company, or maybe you’re remote or something like that, no big deal. What we do is we send what’s called a mobile notary out to wherever you are. We’ll send this person, they’ll come out with the documents, you sign it in front of them. As long as you got your ID or some form of identification, good to go. Sign it and they will deliver that paperwork to the company to process. That’s another way that we get these things done. Anyway, hopefully that helps you. I guess we’ll talk to you on the next video. All right. Have a good day. Thanks.