Cash has been King for a while, but the value of purchasing your home with cash has risen to entirely new levels because of lender and underwriter practices. It has become very difficult to work with lenders, loan processors, underwriters, and loan funders to actually get a transaction closed, and buyers and sellers are being asked for multiple closing extensions stretching the closing out for weeks sometimes. The parties are also regularly being asked to sign addendums long after they signed all the closing documents. The result is delays, frustration, anxiety, and anger.
Cash Talks
If there is anything that can drive a buyer and a seller crazy, it’s signing the closing documents and then being told that the transaction will not close and an extension must be drafted by the real estate agents and signed by the buyers and sellers. But what’s happening lately is that this is happening more than once, and the lenders are asking that additional documents be signed after the parties signed their closing docs. And get this: they are often asking that an addendum be signed on the day the transaction is supposed to close. If all the parties were sitting at a desk in Sequim patiently waiting for that surprise demand by the lender, that might work out, but too often buyers and sellers are somewhere else in the country without the ability to respond to a phone call immediately and often without the ability to sign a new document and get it back within minutes.
Cash Beats Loans
This morning I received an Addendum to a HUD-1 Closing Statement that came out of the blue and the lender is asking the parties to sign, but one of the sellers is long gone with no phone access. He signed everything he was asked to sign, and he signed multiple extensions, but today when the transaction is supposed to record, the lender comes up with a new requirement that the parties sign an additional document that itemizes a few title and loan expenses, all of which should have been addressed long ago.
Cash is King and Queen
If you have the ability to purchase your home with cash, you will save yourself so much stress and delays and uncertainty. Working with lenders and underwriters is now more difficult than it has been in my 37 years in the real estate business. If you intend to get a loan, be sure you do get connected with a great mortgager broker who understands all these processes and who will help you work through them. If you do not have a local mortgage broker for the Sequim and Port Angeles area, you’re welcome to contact me for a referral. For now, there is no doubt that Cash is King and Queen.
Last Updated on September 20, 2019 by Chuck Marunde
