Pennsylvania Association of Realtors has a multitude of documents that make your closing easier. They may not seem to since there are so darned many of them, but they are standard and offer fair options. As long as you don't have a realtor writing in short deadlines and leaning you towards all of the options the seller would like (e.g. no inspection, etc), then feel confident that you're prepared by seeing some of the documents prior to signing them.
Standard Agreement For The Sale of Real Estate - This is exactly what it says. Our realtor filled this out when we went to make a bid. All changes are then noted on the document and initialed by both parties. Important things to note: dollar amounts and deadlines. You miss one of those and you could be really hurting your sale. I highlighted dates to make sure I didn't miss anything. Our realtor was really on top of everything when it came to contracts and dates. If your realtor isn't, then you might not want to use that realtor for your next transaction. Unfortunately, at this point, it's a little late to change realtors.
Homebuyer's Guide to the Agreement of Sale - Another PA Association of Realtors file.
More PAR Forms - If you want to browse around some of the other forms available from the PA Association of Realtors, this link will take you to the site that the PAR uses to sell their forms. You can view the documents (labeled Sample) in Acrobat format.
Residential Loan Application - Fairly standard since it's a Freddy Mac document. You'll be filling one of these out to at soe point in your process.
Closing Costs aka Breaking the Bank
Here's our HUD-1 form, incase anyone is interested in seeing what closing costs and fees look like. I tried to remove all of the #s as to what we paid for our home, not that you couldn't look it up yourself or just ask or anything. If it's too confusing, I'll just add them back in.
These should resemble the Good Faith Estimate you got from your lender. If you haven't gotten one, ask for one. You don't want to be surprised at closing.
Title Insurance rates - Ah. The mystery behind this number is solved. This page is kind of confusing, so I'll try to lay this out a little to explain it.
Here are the rates:
| Basic Rate on $100,000 loan | Re-issue Rate on $100,000 loan | |||
| Rates per unit of insurance: | Rates per unit of insurance: | |||
| $0 to $30,000 | $420.00 | $0 to $30,000 | $378.00 | |
| Add per $1,000 | Add per $1,000 | |||
| $30,001 to $45,000 | $ 7.25 | $30,001 to $45,000 | $ 6.53 | |
| $45,001 to $100,000 | $ 6.00 | $45,001 to $100,000 | $ 5.40 | |
| $100,001 to $500,000 | $ 5.00 | $100,001 to $500,000 | $ 4.50 | |
| $500,001 to $1,000,000 | $ 3.75 | $500,001 to $1,000,000 | $ 3.38 | |
| Example: | Example: | |||
| First $30,000 of Loan Value | $420.00 | First $30,000 of Loan Value | $378.00 | |
| First $30,000 of Loan Value | $420.00 | First $30,000 of Loan Value | $378.00 | |
| Next $15,000 x .001 x 7.25 | $108.75 | Next $15,000 x .001 x 6.53 | $97.88 | |
| ($45,000 - $30,000) | ||||
| Next $55,000 x .001 x 6.00 | $330.00 | Next $55,000 x .001 x 5.40 | $297.00 | |
| ($100,000 - $45,000) | ($100,000 - $45,000) | |||
| Total: | $858.75 | Total: | $772.88 | |
Example: $120,000 house (first $100k will match chart above):
$0 to $30,000 $420.00
$30,001to $45,000
($15,000 x .001 x $7.25)
$108.75
$45,001 to $100,000
($55,000 x .001 x $6.00)
$330.00
$100,001 to $120,000
($20,000 x .001 x $5.00)
$100.00
Grand Total $958.75