What happens now that we have an accepted offer?

Congratulations!! I’m so happy for you! Once we’ve verbally accepted an offer, both parties will sign the contract. Once that happens, we’ll send a copy of the executed contract to the title company to begin bringing the abstract up to date and be ready for title work.

Unless otherwise specified in the contract, the buyer’s investigations period begins three calendar days after the last signature and lasts 10 days by default. See the excerpt below from Page 2 of 6 of the contract:

I’ll let you know of our specific timeline.

Meanwhile, the broker is required to be in receipt of the buyer’s earnest money within three business days.  The earnest money deposit is essentially a good faith payment showing the buyer is serious about moving forward. The earnest money is held in trust and will be credited toward the buyer’s closing costs at closing. (I have another post that mentions expectations for keeping earnest money if the contract fails during the investigations or appraisal period.) 

I prefer for either our office as the listing broker or the buyer’s broker to hold the deposit simply because we have a much more streamlined process for releasing it (compared to a title company) should a dispute come up between the buyer and seller and the buyer asks for the earnest money to be returned. If neither has a trust account, then we have no choice but to deposit it with the title company.

Next we will change the property to PENDING in the MLS, cancel any future showing requests and cancel any upcoming open houses. We are then officially in the investigations time period (see your contract for the exact number of days).

Questions? Call me at (405) 585-6580 or email Steve@Soldonshawnee.com.

<< STEP 12: We received an offer. What does it mean?  >> STEP 14: Home inspections