If you're selling your Virginia home without a listing agent, the first real financial document you'll see from a buyer is a pre-approval letter. It looks official, it's usually on lender letterhead, and it's easy to read as a guarantee…
A cash offer and a financed offer can look almost identical on the signature page, but they carry different kinds of risk for a seller working without a listing agent. Neither one is automatically the better choice -- what matters…
Not every letter a buyer hands you says the same thing, even when they look similar. "Pre-qualified" and "pre-approved" get used almost interchangeably by buyers, but they represent very different levels of review, and knowing which one you're looking at…
Once you've accepted an offer and gone under contract, the sale doesn't run itself just because there's no listing agent managing it. Virginia has a fairly standard sequence of steps between contract and closing, and most of it is administrative…
Once you have a serious offer, there's nothing wrong with reaching out to the buyer's lender directly to ask a few questions. Buyers and their loan officers deal with unrepresented sellers regularly, and a reasonable lender won't be bothered by…
If a buyer's offer is financed, there's a good chance it includes an appraisal contingency, and it's worth understanding what that actually protects before you sign anything. In plain terms, it gives the buyer an exit if the home appraises…
Most financing red flags in an offer aren't hidden -- they're just easy to miss if you don't know what you're looking at. A pre-approval letter, a proof of funds statement, and a loan officer's confidence on the phone can…
A loan contingency is one of the most misunderstood parts of a financed offer. Sellers often assume it protects the buyer from almost anything going wrong with their financing, when in reality it protects against a much narrower set of…
FHA and conventional loans get treated as if they're fundamentally different kinds of offers, and in a few practical ways they are -- but the differences are about process, not about how qualified or serious a buyer is. Neither loan…
