Today, I thought I would blog about something that’s been taking over my life a bit lately: the busy summer season and choosing your closing date.
It is traditional for real estate to be busy in the summer; people frequently go house hunting in the spring once the weather turns nice, and the deals close 4-6 weeks later. We are always (very gratefully, I should add) busy from May until September with closings. What I wanted to specifically talk about today was choosing the day you close, rather than the date.
Most people want to close on Friday, because they can have the whole weekend to unpack and sort before going back to work. Long weekends are particularly attractive, because they offer three free days. However, there are distinct advantages to closing on a different day of the week:
- Your lawyer will be less busy. If you are the only deal I am closing on a Tuesday, I will have your deal closed the moment your money arrives. If I have ten deals closing the same day, simply because there is only so much time, I will have to wait until two or three are ready to go at once before I can go to the bank.
- One day of delay vs. three (or four). No one likes to think of the worst case scenario, but sometimes it happens: there is a power failure at the bank, or for some other reason your money doesn’t arrive before the end of the day, and we cannot close your purchase. In that situation, if you were scheduled for a Wednesday, we can close Thursday morning. If you were scheduled for a Friday before a long weekend, you’ll be stuck in a hotel until Tuesday.
- Moving may be less expensive. Trucks and other moving services may offer a discount if you move your things over on Thursday evening instead of Friday. You can always wait to unpack until the weekend rolls around.
If there is a particular reason you want to close on a Friday, by all means do so – your closing date should be as convenient as possible. However, it is worth considering other days of the week in order to make the closing go maybe a little more quickly.
