A Real Estate Transaction Timeline: How To Manage All Your Critical Transaction Dates

Source: Freepik

Whether you’re a broker, real estate agent, or transaction coordinator, you know that missing even the smallest step of the selling and buying process could result in a costly disaster.

That’s why understanding the real estate timeline is so critical. 

Depending on your state’s requirements, transaction timelines may range from a few dozen to a few hundred items.

Among these, only a handful of essential milestones signify critical events in the closing process.

This guide will help you understand:

• Which dates are most vital to the real estate transaction process.
• How you can track those dates more efficiently.
• How you can easily share them with real estate agents, clients, and other people involved in the transaction. 

Who We Are and Why We Wrote This Guide: At Paperless Pipeline, we’ve spent over ten years helping the country’s top real estate brokerages, teams, and independent transaction coordinators simplify real estate transaction management.  The articles we produce and share with the real estate community are best practices developed alongside over 80,000 industry professionals who trust Paperless Pipeline to help recruit staff, grow their business, and close every real estate deal.   If you haven’t tried Paperless Pipeline, don’t worry! This article, and every other resource we produce, is written to help you grow your real estate business regardless of whether or not Paperless Pipeline is the best product for you. We hope you enjoy this article and find continued value in the best practices we share.

What Are Critical Real Estate Transaction Milestones and Key Dates?

Real estate transaction milestones and key dates are two distinct requirements. Both are important and must be managed precisely from contract to closing. 

Source: Freepik

Each real estate transaction milestone is a completed step that signifies a new stage of the deal. 

For example, the sales, contact, and closing process are each a stage or a milestone in the overall transaction.

A transaction key date requires the completion of specific events on or before it. For example, an inspection deadline is when the home and pest inspections must be complete. 

In other words, a milestone is met once the required steps have been completed on or before the key date. 

Real Estate Transaction Timeline Template

This real estate transaction timeline template provides all the key dates and milestones during a deal.

Stage one: Sales

The first phase of the transaction process is sales. For both the buyer and the seller, this is a crucial time.

For the buyer, this involves house hunting, finding the right property, and making an offer. For the seller, it’s about listing their property and considering offers.

Seller

Here’s what this part of the process looks like for the seller:

1. Market analysis

Use your comparative market analysis (CMA) tool to estimate the property’s value compared to similar ones in the area.

2. Agree to a listing price

Present your suggested listing or sales price to the seller and ask them to sign off on it. You’re now ready to hit the market!

3. Market the property

Take some professional photographs of the property and list them on your multiple listing service (MLS). You can also arrange advertising, host open houses, and book private showings. 

Buyer

Now it’s time to consider the buyer in this part of the process:

1. Meet the buyer

Meet your buyer face-to-face to find out:

• What they’re looking for.
• Their budget and finances.
• The considerations that drive their property desires. 

The answers will help you decide whether you are the right agent for them.

2. Sign the buyer agreement

Before you take a buyer out to view properties, they should ideally sign an agreement that they commit to working with you. Otherwise, they could easily switch to another real estate professional, and all your hard work will be wasted.

3. Speak to the lender

Next, your client needs to speak to a mortgage lender. The lender will determine how much the buyer can afford to borrow.

The lender will recommend an action plan if the buyer does not qualify for the amount they wish to borrow. This includes strategies for improving their credit score, like making down payments on off-store cards.

4. Recommend properties

Send the buyer a list of all properties that meet their criteria and ask them to narrow the list down to their top five.

5. Viewing

Take your client out to visit the top three properties on the list. 

6. Make offers

If your client likes one or more of the properties they viewed, they need to make an offer.

An offer shouldn’t just cover the cost of buying the property itself. It should also include details like: 

✔️ Your client’s terms.

✔️ The settlement date.

✔️ The deposit they can put down.

✔️ Any contributions they would like the seller to make. 

✔️ Closing costs.

Based on the above, the buying agent creates a purchase contract, which is then sent to the selling real estate agent.

7. Negotiation

The two agents negotiate the deal on behalf of their clients. The seller will recommend to their client whether to accept, counter-offer, or reject the purchase contract. The buying agent then speaks to their client and responds on their behalf.

This can go back and forth many times until the respective parties have agreed on a home’s purchase price and terms. The deal now enters the contract phase.

⚠️Critical Deadline All the elements of the next phase must be completed by the date specified in the purchase agreement. If they aren’t, then the deal could fall through.

Stage two: Contract

Here’s where deals begin to get complicated. When a contract is signed, it triggers a number of concurrent deadlines for several different processes. Let’s look at each process.

The escrow process

1. You must open an escrow account with the title search company as soon as the contract is signed. Send them a copy of the contract, along with the earnest money deposit.

2. The seller submits disclosures to the title company.

3. Once the title company has received a copy of the home inspection report, they begin the title search and issue a title report.

Insurance

The buyer contacts their insurance provider to get homeowner coverage. 

Appraisal and loan approval

1. The buying real estate agent sends the lender a copy of the contract. The mortgage lender will immediately schedule an appraisal of the property to ensure that it is worth the amount it is lending. This typically takes a week.

2. Next, the mortgage company checks that the property details provided to them by the buyer during pre-approval still check out and correspond with property.

3. If the appraisal and loan have both been approved by the lender, they will issue a clear-to-close notice shortly before closing.

The inspection

1. Once the contract has been signed, the buyer’s agent orders a home inspection. 

2. The inspector submits their report. If any repairs need to be made, the buying agent submits an addendum to the listing agent. 

3. A copy of the home inspection report is also sent to the title company and the real estate attorney.

⚠️Critical Deadline: The Inspection Period You typically have around ten days after a contract has been signed to conduct this inspection and submit any repair requests to the listing agent. The post-inspection negotiation period is an additional one to two weeks after the inspection.

Sellers

1. The seller submits all property disclosures to the buying agent. 

⚠️Critical Deadline You usually have around five days after a contract has been signed to submit disclosures to the buying agent.

2. The seller arranges for the property inspectors to be allowed access.

Final negotiations 

Once all the above steps have been completed, the buyer and seller have one more chance to enter into negotiations over any repairs. 

Stage 3: The closing process

If all six processes above have been completed by the agreed closing date, the closing process can begin. 

This involves the following steps:

1. The escrow company verifies that all parties have fulfilled their obligations.

2. The loan company releases the funds to the buyer.

3. A final walk-through of the property is done with the buyer and the agent. 

4. The buyer, seller, and their agents meet to sign the closing documents.

5. The title records are filed with county officials.

6. The seller gets paid.

7. The buyer receives the keys on closing day.

How to Track Your Key Dates and Real Estate Transaction Milestones

Tracking milestones and key dates is perhaps the most important part of the transaction process.

If a key date comes up without all the required steps being completed, a milestone is unlikely to be met, which may cause significant delays and frustration—or worse, result in the deal completely falling through.

There are three ways you can track everything:

1. Personal tools 

If yours is a new company just getting started, spreadsheets and calendars connected to your current email accounts are a method commonly used at this stage, as are paper checklists.

Even though it’s nowadays regarded as a rather dated approach, paper checklists can help you manage your tasks in a very practical way when you start out. 

Here’s a sample spreadsheet to help you get started→

Some cloud-based spreadsheet tools and CRM functions may be useful, but because they’re not 100% focused on real estate, they’re often not optimal for offices with more than ten agents.

2. General software 

General software solutions that are made for anyone, not just real estate professionals, are another option. These products often include cloud-based spreadsheet tools and even CRMs.

Both can help track key dates in a way that allows more than one user to see them, but it often remains a manual process that’s more susceptible to error. 

3. Purpose-built software

The best option for successful companies is software designed specifically to support the real estate transaction process. 

With Paperless Pipeline, brokers and independent transaction coordinators alike can track key dates and milestones with automated checklists.

This workflow allows for a clearly defined process that makes it easier for you to manage updates and changes. It also allows you to sync items to external calendars automatically, which makes sharing these dates with clients and third parties incredibly simple.

How to Share Transaction Milestones with Agents, Clients, and Other Contacts

With Paperless Pipeline, customers can easily share transaction key dates and milestones with anyone—including in-house agents and staff, co-op agents, home buyers, home sellers, and other contacts on the transaction.  

By using email templates and auto-fill tags, you can set up templates such as: 

• Introduction emails: These emails can be set up to reflect all the critical due dates. This includes home and pest inspection, financing, appraisal and mortgage pre-approval, contingencies, option period, and due diligence dates, which can all be auto-filled. 

• Milestone notifications: You can send milestone notifications or announcements with clear reminders about what needs to be done next, what’s been done, and anything else that’s needed as the transaction moves through all its phases.

• Progress updates: You can send your clients and agents quick updates about the deal’s progress—including all upcoming key dates—with just a few clicks. 

We’re so convinced that you’ll love Paperless Pipeline that we’re offering you a full-feature free trial to test out our software. 

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