CLOSED LOT 1 STAGECOACH ROAD
STILLWATERS
Great corner lot in a growing area of Stillwaters. Level lot with mature trees. Come see all this area has to offer inside Stillwaters as well as just outside the gates.
CLOSED 24 POPLAR POINT
LAKE MARTIN
NEW PRICE!!!! Hidden in plain SIGHT!! Water Everywhere!! Over 300 ft of waterfront on this almost 5000 sq ft villa with an elevator reaching all three floors. Large point lot with seawall, floating pwc ports, a covered pwc lift, a covered boat lift and a noncovered boat lift. Double garage, 6 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, office, game room, huge great room, Dining and kitchen combo which leads to heated and cooled sunroom. Kitchen has ice machine, double ovens, instant hot water Almost a thousand sq ft of covered porches, decks and patios. Come see all this gated community and the surrounding area has to offer. Restaurants, bakeries, sports pubs, hotels, shops, fitness center, golf, pharmacy, doctor office, dentist, grocery stores, marinas, and much more.
DON FULLER
FULLER REALTY LAKE MARTIN
CALL OR TEXT 256.675.0067
EMAIL DON
CLOSED 191 FOXWOOD TRAIL
LAKE MARTIN
Long winding driveway brings you straight to Paradise.4 bedroom 3-bathroom main house with 2-bedroom 1 bath guest house. Both have large dens, kitchens, porches, etc. Guest house is new and main house was remodeled in the last few years. Lots of places to entertain with covered decks and porches, covered dock with two lifts, boat ramp with storage building, seawall, large flat yard lakeside with a fantastic view. By water this is sort of across from Chuck’s. Be sure and watch video.
DON FULLER
FULLER REALTY LAKE MARTIN
CALL OR TEXT 256.675.0067
EMAIL DON
By Kimberly Dawn Neumann
When Doreen Smith listed her house in Castle Rock, CO, in February, the coronavirus was on her radar, but didn’t seem like a serious problem at the time.
“COVID-19 was on my mind because I teach high school social studies, and we’d discuss it when talking about current events,” says Smith. “But I certainly didn’t think that this would be something to have to consider when selling my home.”
When Smith was about to list her home, she asked her real estate agent if she should be worried about selling because it was an election year. Her agent assured her that January 2020 had been a terrific month for home sales. So Smith decided to move ahead and put her house on the market on Feb. 27.
“It was supposed to be a gorgeous, sunny weekend, so we put the ‘For Sale’ sign in my yard on Wednesday to be ready for my home to hit the MLS on Thursday,” Smith recalls. “My agent immediately started getting calls, including one on Wednesday night. I had five showings on Thursday, and I got three offers Friday morning.”
Smith decided to sell to a couple who lived in California.
“When I took their offer, it came with the contingency that they must be able to sell their home in order to buy mine,” Smith says. “I accepted the contingency because their house was already under contract, through inspection, and had a closing date of March 23.”
So Smith planned to move out on that same day, and move in temporarily with her sister in nearby Littleton, CO, while shopping for a condo. (Both of her boys were out of the house, so she was downsizing.)
All went according to schedule at first. However, in the ensuing weeks as news (and cases) of COVID-19 swept the nation, Smith saw much of what she knew about her home closing change.
Here’s how she survived closing a home sale during this pandemic—and what she learned in the process.
Why the coronavirus can delay closings
On March 23—the day of her scheduled closing and move—Smith got a call from her agent telling her there was a potential snag.
“Around 9:10 a.m. I got a text from my real estate agent: ‘Hi! Are you home?’ I texted ‘Yes! Movers are here, hope this is still a go?’ with a nervous emoji. Two seconds later I got a call,” says Smith. “My buyer’s buyer in California had a tax issue with their property and needed some form from the IRS. The IRS said due to the coronavirus, they were delayed in response times, and were not able to get the letter in time for their scheduled Monday closing.”
This snafu led to Smith and her buyer amending their contract to extend the closing by two weeks, and making it official with an electronic signature. So now she was set to close on April 7, but still moving on March 23.
Although Smith’s move went smoothly, more paperwork delays caused her closing to hit another snag, bumping her closing date to April 10. But the paperwork was procured faster than planned, and the closing date moved again, to April 8.
“Apparently my buyers were really frustrated, as they were homeless and all of their stuff was on a moving truck with no house,” says Smith. “At this point I was just trying not to freak out.”
Inside a ‘drive-through’ closing
When closing day finally arrived on April 8, Smith braced for more changes—and they arrived right on schedule. For instance, while most home closings involve all parties gathering to sign paperwork, the coronavirus had upended this tradition, too.
“Because of the crisis, real estate agents were not supposed to attend closings in order to minimize exposure to all parties,” says Smith. Furthermore, “the governor of Colorado had also passed a law saying that virtual closings were acceptable at this time. But my lender, like many, said no way. Lenders were trying to be careful about who they loaned money to.”
So, rather than conduct a virtual closing, Smith ended up doing the next best thing: a “drive-through closing.” She was told to drive to the title company’s parking lot, then call the title agent inside, who popped out of her office building wearing a mask and walked toward Smith’s car.
Smith (who was wearing a bandana mask) cracked her car window to hand her ID to the title agent. After verifying Smith’s ID, the title agent handed Smith a clipboard with the paperwork and a blue pen in a plastic bag.
The title agent told Smith to take her time and sign the highlighted sections of the paperwork. If Smith had any questions, she was urged to call her real estate agent, who was also keeping an eye on her phone in case there were any issues.
“It took me about 10 minutes to sign everything,” Smith says. “Then the title agent came back and reviewed everything while I remained in my car, and while we chatted about how strange this all was. The agent admitted they’d only been doing ‘drive-through’ closings for a week. The reason the title company required someone to show up in person was they wanted the seller’s account information of where they’d wire the money delivered in person—I assume that’s to avoid mistakes for the transfer of such a large amount.”
Despite this strange setting, the money was immediately wired to Smith and her sale was finally finished.
Now settled in at her sister’s home, Smith is going to hold off on looking for a condo for now.
“I asked my real estate agent when we could start hunting; she said maybe June,” says Smith. “But I am getting my mortgage pre-approval paperwork completed this week, so I am ready to buy when we are up and running again.”
By: Angela Colley
The good news: You’re almost home free (or free of your home in this case). You’ve accepted the buyer’s offer, the negotiations are finally winding down, and there is only one more little box to check: closing.
OK, so maybe it isn’t a little thing. And maybe you’re a little worried something is still going to go wrong. That’s why we’re here to help get you through closing without a hitch—or barely a hitch (hey, stuff happens).
Get the repairs done
First things first: You’ve got to get those repairs done. We get it—the last thing you want to do now is work on a house you are about to sell. But if you agreed to make repairs or improvements, don’t put them off until the last minute.
“Some sellers do try to get cute and wait until the day of closing, but they really should do all the repairs at least a week before closing,” says Joshua Jarvis, founder of Jarvis Team Realty in Duluth, GA. Getting things done ahead of time will give you plenty of wiggle room if something should still go wrong, or if the buyer finds a problem during the final walkthrough (more on that to come).
So check the approved offer, make a note of any repairs you and the buyer agreed on, and get to it—and don’t forget to cover yourself. Save receipts from items purchased and invoices from contractors, and take before and after photos of any work completed. You will have proof that repairs were completed on the off chance that the buyers contest them during the walkthrough or at closing.
The final walkthrough
Before your closing date—often 24 hours before—the buyers and the buyers’ agent will do one more walkthrough of the house (for which you should not be present). They will go through every room of the house, inside and outside—a process that typically takes about a half hour. Some buyers will go into detail, testing every light switch. But in most cases, the buyer is just looking to make sure agreed-upon repairs were made and no new issues have crept up before closing.
“Buyers are basically looking for anything unexpected in the home,” Jarvis says. “Say, for example, there was a rug covering a problem area.” (Not that you would do that, you awesome seller, you.) If the buyers do find an issue, you may have a chance to fix the problem ahead of time.
“In most cases, the seller would be notified immediately after the walkthrough,” Jarvis says.
If the problem is big enough, you may have to delay your closing date to give time for the repair. But that only happens occasionally. Often, the buyers will take a trade.
“Many times, the buyers ask for money instead,” Jarvis says. But once the documents are ready to go, the terms usually can’t be altered to include the new amount, and that is where the trade comes in. “You typically see gift cards or appliance trades [added to the deal],” Jarvis says.
The closing
Many closings go smoothly. By this point, the buyers are excited to get into their new house, agreed-on repairs have been made, and the sellers are ready to get out. If things are going smoothly, the closing for you might boil down to a blur of paperwork. “The sellers sign eight documents and will have to sit through an hour and a half of watching the buyer sign,” Jarvis says.
Unless problems creep up—or the buyer wants to negotiate further—you only have two jobs: waiting and reading documents. Some are worth perusing more than others. For example, make sure you pay close attention to the settlement statement. “There are other documents you’ll need to sign like a warranty deed or ‘Don’t sue the attorney’ documents, but the settlement is the most important,” Jarvis says. It includes the money you’re making on the sale, plus tax implications. Make sure to check that these numbers jibe with what you’ve been told and were expecting—and if not, pull your real estate agent or attorney aside and point them out.
Last-minute drama
So what if things aren’t going smoothly? What if the buyers want to negotiate again? The buyer has the right to hash out concerns up until the time they sign the final document and take possession of your house. It makes sense to at least hear them out. After all, you’ve come this far.
If the buyer is negotiating for something you can solve without amending the terms (say, for example, you can offer up the washer and dryer in the house), you’ll probably be able to hammer those details out at closing.
But if you and the buyer have negotiated a lower price at the last minute, you may have to delay closing.
“Big changes just mess the whole thing up,” Jarvis says. “For example, a seller could say, ‘I’ll drop the price by $2,000.’ There’s an amendment that needs to be done and the loan would have to be rerun,” Jarvis says. That could take anywhere from one day to a week, depending on the bank’s turnaround times.
Once the negotiations are handled and the papers are signed, the buyers’ funds are transferred to your attorney, who will handle the payments to cover your loan and pay your real estate team. Thankfully, this part is handled by someone else.
And then comes the best part: You’ll get a check for the remainder, usually the same day in most states.
Now, all that’s left is the fun part: Officially moving out and moving on!
