A Guide For First Time Home Buyers to Getting the Escrow Process Right

The escrow process is an essential process to goin the contract you'll have with the lender. That is, you'll
through when buying a house. It's designed to makeput the address of the property you want to buy. The
sure that both the interests of the seller and the buyerlender will give you a list of the closing costs, which
will be protected during the crucial stages of the buyingyou should read in detail and compare with the good
process.faith estimate given to you earlier when you were still
Say for example after looking through Naples homesapplying for the loan.
for sale, you decided to buy Naples real estate. In theGet the house inspected and approved for insurance.
process of buying your beach house, you have hadGet several inspections on the house done so that you
your loan preapproved, you've made an offer to theknow more or less what kind of issues you'll be facing
seller and the seller has decided to go with your offer.with the house. Some issues that you could find out
Here's a brief walkthru of the part where you need toduring the inspection stage may change your mind
use an escrow account.about buying the house so don't skip it. After you have
Open an escrow account.the inspection done, you can proceed to apply for
After you and the seller have agreed on and signed ahazard insurance.
purchase agreement, you should open an escrowGet the title report and title insurance.
account and deposit an earnest money check. TheThis is one of those required steps that you'll be
amount of the earnest money depends on what youthankful for because this saves you the hassle of
and the seller agreed on. This is deposited to thediscovering in the future that somebody else owns
escrow account and most of the time, if you decide topart of the house you bought from the seller. This step
back away from the deal for no good reason, theis all about taking sure that the title is clean and has no
amount of earnest money may be given to the sellerclouds.
as compensation for the days that he/she got theClose the escrow.
house off the market in order to arrange the purchaseHere's where money and documents change hands.
with you. The earnest money will be added to theYou also have to make sure that you read everything
downpayment of the house should the purchase pushthat's in all the papers you will sign (and there will be a
through.lot of those) before you sign them.
Have the bank appraise the property and secure theThat should be it. There may be a few extra things
financing.you could do in between but more or less, this is what
Before you get to the escrow part of the process,you'll expect during the closing stages of the buying
you should already have had your loan preapproved.process. When in doubt, always ask your real estate
The bank will then appraise the property. After theagent or lawyer for help.
appraisal, you'll move forward to completing the details