Buying a house in California follows a fairly predictable sequence, even though every transaction has its own wrinkles. Here’s the order things actually happen in, from first phone call to keys in hand.
Step 1: Get Pre-Approved Before You Look at Anything
Before you tour a single home, talk to a lender and get a real pre-approval, not just a pre-qualification. A pre-approval means a lender has verified your income, assets, and credit and told you what you can actually borrow. In competitive Los Angeles markets, sellers and their agents often won’t take an offer seriously without one attached.
Step 2: Find an Agent Who Represents You
A buyer’s agent works for you, not the seller, and doesn’t cost you anything out of pocket in most transactions since compensation is typically negotiated as part of the deal. Look for someone who knows the specific neighborhoods you’re considering, communicates the way you want to be communicated with, and will tell you the truth about a property even when it’s not what you want to hear.
Step 3: Define What You’re Actually Looking For
Before you start touring, get specific about must-haves versus nice-to-haves: bedroom count, commute tolerance, school boundaries, condo versus single-family, move-in ready versus a project. This step saves you from wasting weekends on homes that were never going to work.
Step 4: Search and Tour
Your agent sets up a search with alerts so you see new listings as they hit the market, which matters in a fast-moving area where good homes can go into contract within days. Tour in person when you’re seriously interested. Photos and virtual tours are useful for a first pass, but they hide as much as they show.
Step 5: Make an Offer
Once you find the right property, your agent prepares a written offer covering price, contingencies, closing timeline, and any terms that make your offer more competitive. In multiple-offer situations, price is only one factor. A clean offer with a strong pre-approval, a reasonable timeline, and flexibility on the seller’s preferred move-out date can beat a higher offer with more strings attached.
Step 6: Negotiate
The seller can accept, reject, or counter. Counters can go back and forth more than once, touching price, repair credits, closing date, or contingency terms. Your agent handles this negotiation on your behalf and should be giving you a clear read on what’s reasonable to ask for and where you’re likely to lose the deal by pushing too hard.
Step 7: Open Escrow
Once both sides sign, escrow opens with a neutral third party who holds funds and coordinates paperwork through closing. Your earnest money deposit typically gets wired within a few days of this point.
Step 8: Inspections and Disclosures
You’ll receive the seller’s required disclosures and typically have a defined contingency period, often around 17 days in a standard California contract, to complete inspections, review everything, and decide whether to move forward, renegotiate, or in some cases cancel.
Step 9: Appraisal and Loan Underwriting
If you’re financing, your lender orders an appraisal to confirm the home supports the loan amount, and finalizes underwriting on your loan. This is also when you’ll want to avoid big financial changes like new credit accounts or job changes, since lenders re-verify things close to closing.
Step 10: Final Walkthrough and Closing
Shortly before closing, you walk the property one more time to confirm its condition and that any agreed repairs were done. Then you sign final loan and closing documents, the deed records with the county, and the home is yours. Closing typically happens 30 to 45 days from when your offer was accepted, though cash deals can move faster.
If you’re starting this process and want someone to walk you through it step by step for your specific situation, get in touch.