When you need to close FAST!
There are a lot of reasons that someone may want to set a land speed record for their mortgage closing. Yesterday, for example, I had a client reach out who had lost on a few houses despite offering way over asking and waiving contingencies. She found THE ONE but the catch was that the sellers needed a two week closing. Period, end of story. The industry standard for closing a mortgage is 30 days, so now we had a problem to solve. What did I say?
Let’s go! Duh.
That’s not to say that you should default to a super-fast closing. It does mean there’s less room for error or surprises, and that you’ll have to jump on your homework immediately rather than taking the weekend to get those updated documents in, but it’s do-able. Let’s talk about how to make it work:
Choose Your Lender Wisely
I’m not one to harp on the #BrokersAreBetter but this is one area that our model shines. Any individual lender has a finite number of employees in the given roles that are required to get your loan to the closing table, and those employees can do a finite amount of work. If a bank suddenly gets a bunch of new applications, their underwriters can’t suddenly double the number of loans they underwrite in a day, so the time to get to the front of the line will get longer. A broker isn’t attached to a single lender, and we can check capacity and turn times with lenders when placing your loan to make sure that if you prioritize speed, your loan isn’t ending up in the back of a 5 day long line.
Utilize Technology
I think that a lot of the delay in putting together a clean loan submission can come down to making sure that all the questions are answered up front. Digital verifications can replace documents that are formatted strangely or difficult to access, and I even have one lender who uses AI to underwrite loan conditions 24 hours a day. That meant that my client above had an underwriting approval before the other lender had even gotten her an updated quote!
Get Your Insurance Quote Early
Your closing disclosure is similar to your loan estimate, and MUST be issued three business days prior to your closing if you’re buying a primary residence. Lenders will have different policies on what they require to have in place before the closing disclosure can be issued, but one of the most common reasons I see for delays is no insurance is in place. We know you have a lot of things happening at once, but insurance is important! You never know when your scenario might take some time to get the right insurance in place.
Get Your Appraisal Ordered
The longest single turnaround time in your loan process from start to finish is typically your appraisal report which has an industry standard turnaround of two weeks from when the order is paid to when the report is delivered. A super fast closing means paying a little extra for a rush fee on your appraisal and ordering it right up front! With more time, I typically wait for my clients to give me the go ahead after their inspection so that we aren’t risking spending money on appraising a house that has major issues, but getting your appraisal ordered asap is critical for super speed.
