I am a freelance copywriter who happens to work with many real estate agents. This is my experience selling and purchasing my third home.

Is there a real estate transaction that doesn’t have a bump in the road at some point? When you’re buying and selling simultaneously, something is bound to hiccup. Our blip came three days before scheduled closing.

A catch-up: we scheduled closing for both homes on Monday, January 6. Originally it was supposed to be January 7, but our sellers needed it moved up a day. We were in Florida until January 1. We were managing the steps while on vacation. It was critical we close on Monday because we were the first in a series of four real estate transactions.

As the closing date drew closer, I became concerned because we hadn’t heard from the title company or our seller’s agent about our closing time. Again, we needed to wrap up Monday for our Ohio sellers to get their funds to close on their next deal January 7. 

Friday, January 3 rolls around. I ask again–what time’s our closing on Monday? Alan calls the title company and guess what? We’re not scheduled!

Now it’s a flurry of calls with our seller’s real estate agent. Why are we not ready to close? What’s happening? We have four other deals dependent on our closing on Monday.

Between the holidays and people catching the flu, our deal simply got lost. No one was following-through with the escrow company, buyer, and title to verify everything came together on the right day.

But everyone pulled it together and we secured a closing time for the afternoon on Monday. 

Closing Time

Closing itself is actually the easiest part, I think. You show up, bring your ID and check book, a good pen, and get to work. Nothing should be a surprise at this point.

It’s weird to finally meet the buyer face-to-face. He was a real estate investor who spent most of the time talking about the market, educating us on real estate investing, and acting like we knew nothing about the business.

Thanks, dude.

All that aside, the closing day moved smoothly. We transferred ownership of our Kentucky home without any other problems.

Our Ohio purchase was a remote close immediately following this one. Funds were wired and ready for the following day’s closing. Two-and-a-half hours and all was done.