Closing, Funding Mortgage Loans.

This is the final step to obtaining your mortgage loan. After your loan earns final approval, closing documents

are prepared and assembled by the lender. They are either faxed or emailed to the closing agent. From these
documents, your mortgage is created and funds will be disbursed. Simultaneously, the borrower is becoming
legally bound to repay the debt secured by the mortgage.

The closing is a formal meeting where ownership of the home is officially transferred from the seller to the
buyer. The manner in which the closing is conducted can vary from state to state, and sometimes even within
a state, there may be differences.

In most states, the closing is conducted by an agent of either a Title Insurance Company or an Escrow
Agency. In a few others, closings are conducted by attorneys in their offices. They are typically attended by the
buyer(s) and seller(s), realtor(s), sometimes a representative of the lender, and, of course, the closing agent.
A normal closing takes about one hour to complete.

If you live in an area where there are no Title or Escrow agencies, your closing could be coordinated by a
mobile signing agent who will meet with you. The buyer's or borrower's main function at a closing is to review
and sign the many documents related to the new mortgage, and to pay its closing costs (if applicable to the
transaction). These funds must be presented in the form of a cashier's check. While you will have a good
idea of what your closing costs will be from your Good Faith Estimate (GFE), usually, the closing agent in the
course of arranging and scheduling the closing, will tell you the amount of funds you should bring to the
closing. Just to ensure the closing is completed legally, a closing agent will often instruct you to bring more
funds to the closing than may actually be required. This is done just in case there are miscalculations in the
disbursement of funds. And, in this case, it's better to have more than is needed. If any party to the closing
has funds which are short, the closing may have to be rescheduled and done over.

In the case of a purchase... there's a common misconception that the buyer will always receive the keys to the
home at the completion of the closing meeting. This is not necessarily true, as some states have laws which
require funding to occur 24-hours after closing. In other states, there exists what is called "table funding" which
means the loan is actually funded during the closing meeting.

From the time of application to the day of closing, a purchase mortgage can require anywhere from 2 to 6
weeks to process and fund. As has been noted, issues like appraisals and home inspections can actually
require the most amount of time during the course of the mortgage process.

In the case of a refinance... there's a shorter timeframe usually involved, and a refinance can be completed
in as little as 10 days. However, here again the amount of time required to obtain an appraisal has great
bearing on the length of time between application and funding.

This completes our 7 step description of the mortgage process. We hope you have found the information
helpful and enlightening. As was stated in our very first installment, if you have any questions, you are
always more than welcome to call us for help or advice.