The process of buying a home can be a lengthy one, and while the methodology of payment processing may not be the first aspect of the process that comes to mind, it will eventually show itself as extremely relevant. That’s why in addition to being a payment processing company, we also excel at gathering sage advice for the real estate closing process, which incorporate modern procedures.
Three top strategies you want to consider are the following:
- Streamlining fraud prevention through third-party payment processing
- Creating a thorough closing checklist
- Asking many questions to get a good grip on what’s going on
While there is never a definitive end to cutting costs and increasing safety, these three methods for handling your real estate closing processes are quick, effective, and easy.
Before we get into the three best ways to ensure safety, let’s take a look at how the real-estate closing process actually works.
Use Expert Techniques to Wrap Up Your Real Estate Closing Process
Before you close on a property, the buyer will likely have found a good lender for their mortgage and will have gone through the process of qualifying for a loan. This legwork often takes longer than the actual real estate closing process, which is the finalization of the loan and the transfer of closing fees.
The resulting responsibilities and liabilities after the real estate closing process will have been discussed beforehand and agreed to; the closing is what makes the buyer responsible for the loan. There are a few other steps that aren’t technically the real estate closing process but go hand-in-hand with it, such as the three-day disclosure read-over and a follow-up checklist.
Ensure Financial Protection with Security Measures
Phishing scams are on the rise in all sectors of business, and between 2015 and 2017 alone, real estate transactions endured a loss of nearly $1 billion due to scams. In fact, the real estate closing process is a prime window for cyber criminals to strike!
There is a multitude of ways this can occur, starting as simple email intercepting to full-on hacking. Payment processing as a service is well-known to reduce the ability of phishing scams to infiltrate payments, but even a fail-safe as simple as disclosing payments plans at the very end can reduce the scope of time that a scammer can intercept.
A few other key rules to follow include:
- Never email your financial information or receive financial information from a client over email; emails are best used for sending and receiving non-sensitive data.
- Have payment protocols in place well before it is time to close.
- Stick to “tried and true” payment processing methods.
The absolute quickest and safest way to send money is often through a third-party payment processing center. Digital payment platforms like paymints.io, ensure that no sensitive data is being exchanged, there is a clear and easily accessible record of transactions that have occurred with names and dates recorded, and there is zero room for phishing infiltration.
Make Sure You Don’t Miss Any Steps
Although the real estate closing process is the finalization of prior agreements, there are a few steps that you want to ensure you take afterward, which are a sort of extended part of closing for those who wish to do things correctly.
In order to do things as cleanly and neatly as possible, it’s wise to schedule a home inspection, sign up for homeowners insurance, scan your area for closing services, and properly store all of your documents.
It is also smart to keep a single physical folder that contains all of your home buying documents, as well as the names and phone numbers of everyone who was involved in the process. Another step you can take to ensure things run smoothly is to hire an advocate to be present during all meetings who can professionally record the dates and times at which documents were signed.
You Should Know What You Are Getting
Anybody you hire in the home buying process, whether a loan officer, an advocate, or even a bank that you regularly speak with, is designed to be on your side in order to get things moving comfortably for you. These are people who engage in selling homes as a job, and there is no question you can ask that is a “stupid” question; you are getting your feet wet in buying a house, but the people involved own the “pond” so to speak.
It’s smart to slow down, especially the last few days before closing, and keep a small checklist of requirements and requests you may have made prior to the closing date, just to ensure that things are being handled on both ends. For example, if you agree to buy a house, and the seller told you it would be reshingled before close and it is not, it would be wise to request a change in the amount you will be paying for the house to offset the costs of hiring a contractor.
You will also be provided with a closing disclosure three business days before the signing event takes place. This is when it is best to really go over everything you’re agreeing to and look over the loan you have signed up for.
Having a Slew of Information in Your Arsenal Is Key
One of the reasons we talk a lot about the real estate closing process isn’t just because it’s a random topic that our payment platform engages in frequently, but also because our platform is designed to be helpful in mitigating risk.
Between that, compiling tried-and-true methods for success, and government-approved home buyers’ resources, we have found ourselves to be a safe haven of sorts for those interested in using our platform to perform their closing costs.
For the best results in using our platform, we suggest reaching out to an expert and scheduling a demo!
