What is the timeline for buying a house in Cherokee County, Ga and what should I expect? We get this question a lot so I am going to walk you through the timeline and also some of the terms like earnest money, deposits, and closing costs.
I’ve had some feedback from clients of mine that seemed to be getting very confused, and it’s very understandable. You know, all these terms that we use in Cherokee County Real Estate Market get a little bit confusing. So I’m going to explain to you the difference between what a deposit is, the earnest money check, what are closing costs and when everything gets paid, and are you writing checks for all this? Or how does, how does this all work right? So here’s how the process works.
So when you are going out and looking for a home here in the Georgia Housing Market and you put an offer on a house, you’re typically going to have to put a deposit down on that home shortly after you write that contract if not immediately, that is called a deposit. We also refer to it as earnest money. So the earnest money is equal to a deposit down on the house. That money will be used towards the purchase of the home. It actually gets set aside in an escrow account and it’s just held there until you actually get to the closing. But that’s a check that you’re going to need to write almost immediately upon writing that offer. It’s typically 1% of the purchase price of the home. So if you’re buying a $300,000 home, it’s typically $3,000 that you’re going to have to write a check for. That’s immediately, right after you go binding with a contract.
Most real estate agents will encourage you to hire a home inspector to inspect the home. That is an additional check that you’re going to have to write to the home inspector, to do their job. Typical $450 to $500, depending on the house location so on and so forth. But that’s an additional check that you will have to write.
Now here’s where the confusion gets into play.
In addition to that, you will need to have some funds at the closing of the home. That’s going to be your down payment on your loan. So let’s say you’re using a 20% down on the property using the same math that we had before a $300,000 house you’re going to need $60,000 to put down on a house. Now, the earnest money or deposit that you wrote when you first wrote the contract can be part of that okay? So that can be part of that $60,000 but that’s an additional amount of funds that you’re going to need at closing.
In addition, if you are using financing when buying your house, there’s a cost to financing. These numbers change periodically. I would encourage you to reach out to your lender to find out exactly what those dollar amounts are going to be, and they vary, but let’s use for our example that it’s $8,000 worth of closing costs for the financing. That’s an addition to the $60,000 that you put down on the house itself. So you’ve got some money that flows, but all of those all that, that large chunk of money doesn’t really occur until you go to the closing table.
So let’s kind of recap. Initially, when you write an offer you’re going to need 1% of the purchase price of the home. You’re going to also need very shortly after that within a couple of days an additional $450 to $500 for the home inspector okay. So you’re going to need that money almost immediately then at the closing table is when you’re going to need the big bulk of money. All right. That’s the 20% down. And if you’re paying the closing costs the additional closing costs that it is associated with bringing financing into the deal. So hopefully that helped out kind of explain what those terms are and answeres your questions about what is the timeline for buying a house in Cherokee County, Ga.
Hope everybody’s having a great day reach out to us if you have any questions or comments about it be more than happy to talk to you about it a little bit more. hope everybody’s having a good one. We’ll talk to you soon.
Feel free to reach out to us by calling 770-280-4560 or sending us a message if you have any additional questions about real estate in Atlanta!
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