LIKE A JAZZ CONDUCTOR ...

Here’s some thoughts on a real estate transaction. It's like being the conductor of a Jazz band.

There’s known components to the process.

SELLER ACTIVITIES:

Prepare house for sale

Sign paperwork; fill out disclosures

House for sale

Open houses

Offers

Contingency period

Close of escrow

Moving to your next place.

BUYER ACTIVITIES:

Decide you want to buy a house

Start looking on line

Use an online calculator to see if you think you can afford to buy

Go to some open houses

Connect with a Realtor

The Realtor connects you with a lender Get officially pre-approved.

Get more serious looking at homes

Write offer (May/may not be accepted)

Get Offer accepted

Appraisal

Due diligence process

Loan approval ; more paperwork

Remove contingencies

Sign off

Close escrow

Move in

This just highlights an overview of the bigger components involved in buying or selling a home. Obviously, there’s lots of people involved.

Buyers and Sellers

Realtors

Lender

Appraiser

Insurance company

Title/Escrow company

Movers

Contractors

Etc.

We put timelines in the contract for due diligence, timeline for contingency removal,

Lender/appraiser approval, clear & transfer title, insurance binder, sign off and close of escrow date.

With so many different parties involved, it’s hard to control everyone’s actions and the timeline. For the most part, we are the conductor of the orchestra of people involved to make the transaction happen in a timely fashion.

That doesn’t always happen. - It could be the sellers not providing access to the property for inspections, It could be the buyer not providing necessary documents to their lender, It could be an appraiser that isn’t familiar with the area and gets the numbers wrong, or it could be the agents not handling the paperwork properly. There's a long list of other reasons as well.

Like a conductor conducting many individuals that have their own specialty, they need to be hitting each note on time to make it sound like music. And in jazz the musicians like to riff, improv, or do solos, which works if it’s in line with the rest of the band. Otherwise, instead of music you just get noise.

The same applies to a real estate transaction.