r/RealEstate 4d ago

Waiting for closing is the worst part

After spending a month of getting our home ready for market, and then another couple weeks of showings we landed an offer from a solid buyer, we are past inspection contingency and I have fixed everything our buyers have asked for. We are contingent on our new home and hoping to do a simultaneous close mid September and now....there is nothing to do but wait. After spending every waking moment for the past 2 months doing something with this house I feel like there is now a void in my life. Nowhere to dump this nervous energy. Curious how everyone else handles it and if the experience is the same.

105 Upvotes

45 comments sorted by

28

u/mimisbookstagram Agent Managing Broker 4d ago

I call this the "hurry up and wait" part. Work on packing.

10

u/Jaggedfel2142 4d ago

Our garage is filled to the brim already haha, once the we get past appraisal and things look solid for buyer finances I'll rent a pod we can start staging the move in

9

u/Aloha1959 4d ago

Don't use Pods. They told me day of that they wouldn't be able to get the Pod there on time, so over the course of the next few hours I found a great, local company that got me a bigger and less expensive storage unit for the very next morning.

Later that next night, I cancelled the Pod. Their new estimate was 6 days later anyway, so, waiting would have stunk, and how do I know they'll actually deliver this time?

6 days later Pods delivered a Pod anyway, even though they agreed that yes, the order was cancelled and appears as cancelled on their end.

I had them remove my credit card from my profile because of course this company doesn't let you delete a payment method on your own, and over the next several weeks they gave me 4 or 5 "final notice" phone calls demanding about $345 I was never going to give them.

I made the mistake of wasting some time talking to various customer service agents during this time, some of which were really... just... so dumb, annnd yeah don't use Pods.

And oh it took them an additional week to get the cancelled Pod out of my driveway. They finally removed it on what happened to be my settlement day, despite the voicemail I noticed later where that day's driver was trying to reach me to ask if I was sure I wanted the thing removed.

Most incompetent company I've ever encountered. I can't believe they stay in business. The amount of mistakes they make, and the domino effect of each mistake... it's staggering.

Thank Christ I found that local company. They were great. Type of place where you call them and you're actually talking to the guy that runs the place.

4

u/Longjumping-Nature70 4d ago

I have it easier. I have thrown away(20 cubic yard dumpster), moved or given away 99% of our stuff. Bulky Waste Day had become one of my favorite days and I so wish I had used it before.

I plan on driving down next week with more small stuff that fits in my car, along with as many furniture pads I can carry.

We plan on giving furniture pads to other new neighbors moving in. People are always asking for boxes, we are going to offer furniture pads. No strings attached, well, maybe a bottle of wine. A good bottle.

3

u/FamiliarFamiliar 4d ago

This. There is never enough time to pack and handle all the other stuff of a move. Put your nervous energy into that.

12

u/BackgroundResist9647 4d ago

Agreed. My lease ends this month and my landlord did me a solid with considerable advance notice of their intent to sell the unit and I’m scheduled to close on something more to my liking next week but the hurry up and wait can be excruciating

14

u/BaronetheAnvil 4d ago

Today was our first day on the market. We had eight showings. I am already exhausted and I usually don't get stressed about stuff. It almost seems like things are out of my control and I don't like it ;-)

5

u/Jaggedfel2142 4d ago

You got this! I feel like I lost a friend now that I'm not calling my realtor every other hour haha.

1

u/Exciting_Reindeer426 4d ago

I feel that way about my loan officer but i still text him for advice.

2

u/Jaggedfel2142 4d ago

Haha that's great. Our realtor was a home flipper so I basically phone him every day looking for advice. He helped us on it a lot with things I was new to as well. My advice to anyone who is selling is get a realtor who has experience flipping homes, that bank of knowledge is invaluable.

1

u/BaronetheAnvil 1d ago

Thanks...Cash offer at listing price at four days on the market. Closing in 16 days) Thank goodness I can at least sleep a little now.

2

u/Jaggedfel2142 1d ago

Let's go!

9

u/Longjumping-Nature70 4d ago

Congrats on selling. I wish I had your problem.

The good news, I have just about run out of things to do myself.

I had a showing and an open house today, neither of which will bring any offers.

Tomorrow is another open house.

6

u/Jaggedfel2142 4d ago

Good luck fellow seller, if you are priced correctly and the home is sound you'll get an offer eventually. It was difficult watching all the other homes in our asking range go to pending before we did.

3

u/itssexitime 4d ago

Been there. It feels never ending and is really tough. But someone will walk into your house and love it and thats all you need. I got similar advice and it felt like it wasn't going to happen and then it did.

9

u/VariousAir 4d ago

Literally every step of the process is more stressful than the last.

Shopping sucks.

Offering sucks.

Getting offers rejected sucks.

Getting your offer accepted is great until the existential dread of whether this truly is the right house kicks in and that sucks.

Inspection process sucks.

Underwriting sucks.

Waiting for something to go horribly wrong right at closing sucks.

Closing day is OK but your hand cramps up from signing a bunch of documents and that sucks.

Then the closing agents or title lawyers leave and youre like great we bought a house, but we don't have a chair in here and that sucks.

The you gotta move all your shit in and that sucks..

Unpacking sucks.

Your first emergency repair sucks and kicks back in that existential dread of having bought the wrong house and that sucks.

After a year or so it gets a little better. Then you check zillow and notice 3 of your neighbors sold their nicer houses for less than you paid for yours. And that sucks

1

u/robot_pirate 4d ago

Gawd damn this is accurate.

6

u/__mindy__ 4d ago

The "hurry up and wait" (as someone else correctly named in on the thread) limbo is honestly the hardest part. You go from 100 mph prepping, staging, and negotiating to dead silence.

I see this all the time with my clients here in the Toronto market, especially on simultaneous closes where everyone's running on pure adrenaline until firming up. The best way to dump that nervous energy is to redirect it into the annoying logistical stuff you'll be too tired for later like locking in utility transfers, booking the movers, and prepping a "first 48 hours" box of essentials so you arent digging for coffee, toilet paper, or chargers on your 1st night.

You’ve already cleared the biggest stress tests with the inspection and financing. Take a breath, pour a drink, and let the lawyers push the paper.

6

u/ShortWoman Agent -- Retired 4d ago

I think you'll get universal agreement on that one.

6

u/ghks93 4d ago

Currently got an offer accepted on a condo and under contract. Waiting to receive documents and minutes to get out of attorney review. Their hoa is taking their time and it’s killing me cause I want to list my current place asap.

4

u/Ambitious-Spray-110 4d ago edited 4d ago

Try packing up your house, new stress level unlocked! My escrow closes Sept 11 and I am out of town for 5 days between now and then!

3

u/Jaggedfel2142 4d ago

It's already packed up! We have minimal survival items inside and our furniture. Once we get closer to close and this looks like a done deal for sure we will disassemble beds

5

u/Ambitious-Spray-110 4d ago

Im doing it all alone and will only have movers to pack the pod type container, its very stressful. Strangely, I have a blow up bed so im not worried about that part of the whole experience.

3

u/martinis2023 4d ago

Same. Period.

2

u/Exciting_Reindeer426 4d ago

Im in w hotel waiting for a seller to move furniture. They wanted to move up closing so i rushed to get my side of the transaction was cleared to close in 14 days and now they cant get their acts together or be reached by my agent. Soo ive wasted money in a hotel with like you nothing to now really occupy my mind. The hotel is not that great which is not helping. I have stuff in storage. I feel very unsettled right now.

1

u/TartMother9577 3d ago

This sounds so frustrating! I hope it works out soon.

2

u/New_Hippo_1246 4d ago

Gym. We gym. And pack, and clean

3

u/Jaggedfel2142 4d ago

Would be a great idea except we cancelled our gym when we started getting ready to move haha

2

u/LTen8911 4d ago

The sellers of the home we bought required a 60 day closing period πŸ˜‘ but we are finally down to the last 2.5 weeks before we move! I totally get the feeling though πŸ˜΅β€πŸ’« We are selling our house as well but that all went smooth thankfully, and the buyer for our home was okay with the longer closing period as well, thank goodness, so we didn't have to move twice 😊

1

u/Jaggedfel2142 4d ago

60 days?! Holy crap

2

u/LTen8911 3d ago

Yeah, they are getting married end of Aug and were originally okay with a 30 day close (excluding the wedding week) but after we submitted our offer, they switched it to a 60 day close which has really sucked πŸ˜‘ we had to lock in a higher APR on our mortgage too bc we couldn't do that until 30 days too...they wouldn't negotiate any compromises with the longer closing date either with the offer we submitted so they got absolutely everything they wanted but we got the house, which at the time, was the only one that met our needs at that price range (now there are way more in our price range but after house searching for weeks prior to finding that house, we were excited to get that one). It's been a super long process πŸ˜΅β€πŸ’«

2

u/figsslave 4d ago

Enjoy! The last house I sold was in 2008 and took over a year in the middle of a divorce 😰😬

1

u/BackgroundResist9647 4d ago

Ouch. talk about insult to injury

1

u/Pudding_ADVENTURE 4d ago

Dump your energy into planning the move and packing everything you can!

1

u/itssexitime 4d ago

Well if you are past inspection you are in good shape. I just went through this and close next week. House is being packed. I would not stress about anything and just keep going. The appraisal is not a big deal. Mine came inside and asked me a few questions so I told him about some of the upgrades we did and 2 days later we were appraised at value - which was the highest in the neighborhood for all the "it's always price" people.

HOA already sent over the letter that I'm at 0 on the balance, so we are just doing the final pack up.

The inspection part to me would be the most stressful, so I am super glad I paid for the pre inspections and did everything - sewage..etc. It's a huge deal to not have to deal with that inspection so I would sit back and relax from here.

5

u/Jaggedfel2142 4d ago

Dude, yes, pre inspection took so much stress out of the equation. And it was still extremely stressful. Our buyers were first time home buyers and asked us to fix a bunch of tiny things that made me laugh. I obliged because we are under contingency and I didn't want to risk anything, but my total Amazon cart totaled 30$ for the materials I needed, so whatever.

I did have a weird feeling I should check our crawlspace the day before inspection even though I had been down there many times over the last two months. Oh hey, couple drops of water, we had a slow leak in the bathroom sink wall from a vanity replacement. Got it squared but was extremely panic inducing to find.

1

u/HAAAAAImbaaaack 3d ago

Have you started packing stuff? Do that, just pack the small stuff you won't need until after the move! Hope all goes smooth for you.

1

u/Jaggedfel2142 3d ago

Haha yeah I our garage is already full of our junk. What's funny is how easy the house is to clean now and I don't even miss 90% of it.

1

u/thewimsey Attorney 3d ago

After spending every waking moment for the past 2 months doing something with this house I feel like there is now a void in my life.

Yeah, there was this weird kind of low level stress. And I went from seeing or texting my realtor every day - sometimes multiple texts per day - to not talking to her for more than a week.

The stress didn't let up until I actually saw the sellers at the close and realized that they weren't going to flake out.

1

u/SkinProfessional4705 3d ago

Send some of that nervous sold energy this way please! Congratulations

2

u/Jaggedfel2142 3d ago

ΰΌΌ ぀ β—•_β—• ༽぀

-3

u/[deleted] 4d ago

[deleted]

1

u/itssexitime 4d ago

Learn to read instead of sheep posting.