Picture this: Your boxes are packed, arrangements with the movers have been made, and utilities for your new home have already been arranged. The builder of your home has given you a walk-through orientation date for two weeks from now. You decide to drive by the dwelling you are about to call "home" and check the progress. As you approach the homesite, you notice that the front yard is still dirt, the roof tiles are stacked on the roof in random fashion, and the exterior stucco is still a dark and ugly gray. Two weeks! How on earth will this house be ready to present to you in two weeks?

Don't panic! This unfinished structure will most likely become a thing of beauty in that very short span of time. The miracle of production home building brings so many factions together at once during the last few weeks of your new home's completion, that it would literally make your head spin!

What you don't know about is what goes on behind the scenes with your building superintendent. He or she has tradesmen from drywallers to painters, to tile installers, roofers and detailers scheduled in tandem (sometimes by the hour!) to bring this all together by the projected walk-through date. I have watched a house in the stage you describe ready for formal presentation within a few days, due to the intense scheduling set up by the builder. In some cases, when the home was to be presented at 1 pm, there were detailers and cleaners working in the house from the early morning hours up until that time to complete the job. The superintendent inspects and re-inspects the progress for quality control, and brings back any tradespeople to correct or finish their handi-work. These tradesmen don't get paid until the builder is satisfied with their work; by the same token, the builder itself doesn't receive its funds until you close escrow on the house. Building superintendents may also have completion bonuses riding on drop-dead completion dates for their homes. See how this is all connected?

In your new home purchase agreement, it may specify that you must be willing to close escrow within 5 days of your new home's completion, whether you plan to occupy it or not. It is your builder's supreme objective to have your home ready for you so that you do not hesitate to close escrow. If you do not believe your home will be ready to your satisfaction by the orientation date, you may still go ahead with your title appointment to sign papers and take your money in, but hold up on the recordation of the deed of trust until you are satisfied with the condition of your new home.

Your title company is there to serve as a neutral third party, taking action on your direction. For that reason, call your title officer ahead of time and discuss your concerns, so that you may anticipate the steps in signing, funding, and closing (recording) on your new home. He or she is a wealth of information and a type of "stress reliever" in this entire process at this point. In cooperation with your lender, the title officer should try to make this as understandable as possible, along with your sales consultant's reassurances regarding the completion of your home.

For comfort's sake, I advise buyers to leave several days, even up to a week, between the anticipated completion of their home and the scheduling of their moving van. Some buyers who have sold their homes and must permit their own buyer to close by a certain date will even arrange a few days' rent-back for this reason, giving themselves a "cushion" to fend off last minute disaster with moving timeframes. This also gives your builder time to bring sub-contractors back to your house to correct walk-through items before your furniture is in place.

In most states, "closing" means recordation of the deed of trust, and confirmation of this is vital before builders will release the keys to your new home. This may vary in different parts of the country, where attorneys are used for closing, and keys are handed out based upon different criteria. The title company will call both buyer and seller to confirm that you are "on record", before you may take possession of the home. Builders generally will not risk the liability involved in permitting you to move personal items into the home before the property is legally yours.

It may be painful to imagine that what you see now will become an occupiable dwelling so quickly, but the wheels are in motion to make your new home a thing of beauty by your walk-through date, and you and your builder will have contributed, once again, to a part of the American dream.

Published: September 18, 1998

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