Why Closing Ability Comes Before Price
A buyer who agrees a good price and then cannot complete has cost you the months you spent not talking to anybody else. On a straightforward house that risk is low. On a Valley property with a titled manufactured home or a contract on the land, it is the main risk.
So the first question is not what they will pay. It is whether they have done this shape of transaction before. The full position is on our page covering the contract and the title.
What Does a Competent Answer Sound Like?
The Buyer Who Has Closed an HCD Transfer
They will ask early whether a 433A was recorded, because it decides what they are buying and how. They will expect the transfer to take longer than a deed and will say so.
They will also want an HCD title search, which is how anybody finds a legal owner or junior lienholder recorded against the home. That search protects you as much as them.
The Buyer Who Assumes It Is All One Thing
The commonest, and rarely dishonest. In most of the country a house on land is one asset, and a buyer active elsewhere has no reason to expect otherwise.
Their offer looks fine and their timetable is built on a deed transfer that will not work. The problem surfaces at escrow, and by then the file has aged.
The question that catches it: how will the home itself transfer, separately from the land.
The Buyer Who Says the Contract Is Not a Problem
On contracted land, worth pressing. It may genuinely not be a problem for their plans, and it is not something they can make go away.
The test: ask what they intend to do with the parcel. A buyer who intends agricultural or consistent residential use is right that the contract is manageable. One who describes development plans is either unaware that cancellation costs 12.5 per cent of unrestricted market value and requires county findings, or is planning to renegotiate with you once they find out.
The Buyer Who Wants to Clear the Burned Unit First
On a manufactured home this is worth refusing until the title position is established. A destroyed unit still has a title record, and possibly a lienholder, and removing the object does not resolve the paperwork attached to it.
The rule worth holding: nothing gets removed from the property until everybody knows what it legally is.
Contract Assigners
Some parties sign to buy and sell the contract on before closing. On a file that already involves two transfers and a tax clearance certificate, adding an unknown eventual purchaser is the arrangement most likely to fail late.
The question that catches it: which entity will appear on the deed, and on the HCD paperwork. A principal buyer answers both with the same name.
The Checks Worth Making Yourself
A preliminary title report. It should reveal whether a 433A was recorded, and it will show a contract on the land.
An HCD title search. For anything titled at the address, and for what is recorded against it.
The county. For the contract position and whether any notice of nonrenewal has been filed.
The county tax collector. For what a clearance certificate would require.
Where We Fit, and Where We Do Not
We buy as principal, in our own entity, with our own funds, and we take title. We do not assign contracts. Ask us which of these transactions we have closed and the answer should be specific.
We are frequently not the right answer. In north Fresno and Clovis, where the housing is conventional, the records are complete and values carry the work, a listing or a rehabber will beat us outright. Our written figure says so when the numbers point there. What happens from there is on our page about how the process actually runs.
Questions About Buyers
One Offer Is Far Above the Others.
Ask that buyer how the home itself will transfer. On manufactured stock the highest offer is frequently the one that has not understood the transaction.
A Buyer Withdrew at Escrow.
On these files that usually means they met the HCD or contract position for the first time. Establishing both up front prevents the repeat.
Does a Buyer Need a Licence?
Not to buy as a principal and take title. Marketing property on behalf of others requires a California real estate licence, and the state lookup is free.