How Does the Real Estate Closings Process Work?

Today we're going to talk about closing a virtual wholesale deal. As I mention in other blog posts a lot of people are really interested in Virtual wholesaling.  It is my favorite part of the business far and away.  Now I do fix and flips in my local real estate market and buy and holds (rental properties) and I do buy and holds in other markets (out of state investing) but my favorite real estate deals are virtual wholesaling.  There's nothing that gives me Greater Joy than that.

So what you're going to end up needing to do is to contact your title company when you get your property under contract.  Let say you live in Pennsylvania and you are selling real estate in Casper Wyoming. You are not going to fly to Wyoming and spend $1,500 flight plus your hotel stay plus your Uber or rental car fees so you're not going to want to do that. 

You contact the title company and let them know this is an email closing.  The title company will email you the documents and you are going to print the documents out.  Then you are going to take the real estate documents to your local bank.  Your local bank will notarize the documents for you for free or whatever bank that you bank with...have your checking accounts with.  They'll take care of it.

Other alternatives are the UPS store but just warn you they charge $8 per page that is notarized.  Some title companies might want 10 pages notarized so that will become expensive. I would avoid those places.  You can go to a local notary as they will be far less expensive but your bank is your best option.  There is almost always a notary in a bank.     

Next you will have to open up a FedEx, USPS, or UPS account so you can overnight the real estate documents. I used them all.  I prefer UPS and FedEx because they guarantee delivery. They get there quicker but know that there's sometimes delays.  I have had weather delays. I sent real estate documents out to Spokane Washington for a real estate closing. It goes into Western Washington and then they got to drive over to eastern Washington but they had fog so that delayed the time to get there and the closing was delayed a day.  

Assume you will have settlement on the 17th. Try to get the title company to get you all the documents by the 14th or 15th at the latest.  You can get them signed, get them notarized and overnight it. The real estate documents will be at the title company by the 16th so they're all prepared and have everything for 17th.  

Make sure you follow up with the title company.  Use the tracking number and you could see what the status is of the delivery of the real estate documents.  

You will not attend real estate closing, so let your title company and buyer now that you are not local.  Many times buyers don’t go to the closing either. The buyer just wires the funds and signs the documents before closing. Most of the time there is not much to notarize on their end. 

This is how a virtual wholesale closing works. It is pretty quick and simple.  

There is no point in attending a settlement (closing) when buying properties out of your area.  It will cut into your profit margin and waste your time traveling.  The beauty of this business is your learning how to buy houses from your bedroom.  

If you enjoyed this article, I created a video on this topic as well. https://youtu.be/ILioQ1uRAYM