Buying a House in Michigan | Complete Homebuyer’s Guide
Buying a home is one of the most exciting — and sometimes overwhelming — milestones in life. At Legacy Title Agency, we’re here to guide you through every step of the process so you feel confident, informed, and supported. Whether this is your first home or your forever home, this guide will walk you through what to expect from start to finish.
Get Pre-Approved and Find the Right Home
The first step in your home buying journey is making sure your financing is in place. Work with a trusted lender to get pre-approved, which will help you understand your budget and make your offers stronger. Once you’re pre-approved, you can start searching for the perfect home with your real estate agent.
Stage 1 - Get an Accepted Offer and Submit Your Earnest Money Deposit (EMD)
When you’ve found the right home, you’ll make an offer to the seller. If you are using a real estate agent, your agent will usually prepare this offer and advise you on appropriate terms. If you are not using a real estate agent, you may use our for sale by owner page for some additional information. If the seller accepts your offer, you’ll need to provide an Earnest Money Deposit to show you’re serious about the purchase. An Earnest Money Deposit is money you place in escrow, usually with your real estate agent or the title company who will be completing the closing.
You can send funds by check, wire transfer, or our secure online platform, Legacy Pay. Learn more about how earnest money deposits work on our Submit your EMD page.
Once your Purchase Agreement is signed, the title company and lender drive a lot of the closing preparation. Provide the Title Company (Legacy Title Agency) with your contract documents and some basic personal information (feel free to use our Order Form). You can submit your information online or send an email to orders@legacyclosings.com to get started. We suggest providing as much information as possible during this stage. Once we receive your information, we will begin our process of research and preparation!
Stage 2 - Closing Preparation
Once our research is completed, we will provide you with a Commitment for Title Insurance and let you know what items we will need to insure the transaction and facilitate the closing. We will work with all parties involved to get everything needed so we can move toward a smooth closing. Be prepared for Legacy to ask for basic information like confirmation on the spelling of names, contact information, marital status, etc. If there is an entity involved we will also request documentation showing who has the right to sign on behalf of the entity (such as corporate resolutions, certificates of trusts, or letters of authority). If there are liens on the property, like a Seller’s mortgage, we will request items such as a signed payoff authorization from the seller so we can communicate with lien holders and order their payoffs.
If you are taking title with another individual, during this process, you should also consider how you want to hold title -this is also called vesting or tenancy. Please let us know which tenancy you would like to use and check out our blog post here for more information.
Stage 3 - Clear to Close and Scheduling your Closing
Once we have collected everything in the last stage, we confirm that all other parties, such as your lender (if there is one) have all their closing requirements too. THEN, we will schedule your closing by selecting a time, date, and location for your signing to occur. Once that closing date is finalized, we prepare the closing documents and do all the math to balance your closing figures with all parties involved - based on our research and information provided to us. Documents will be provided to you for review prior to the closing via email, along with how much money you will need to bring to closing. Check out our Funding your Closing link for more information!
Stage 4 - The Closing
At your Closing Appointment, our closer will meet with you to get all of our closing documents signed, such as the mortgage, closing statements and tax documents. We will also collect all funds from you, the buyer, and your lender (if there is one) and then disburse funds to the seller or other parties owed money as part of the closing. Remember to always bring your social security number and state-issued photo ID to the closing along with anything else we requested. If the buyers and sellers elect to sign their documents in different locations or at different times, the closing is not completed until all documents from the buyer and seller are combined. Once all documents are signed by everyone and all funds for the closing are received - then you are officially CLOSED!
Stage 5 - Post Closing
Even after the Closing Appointment, we still have some work to do! Legacy Title Agency will receive the closing documents in our Headquarters so that the original documents can be sent to the appropriate parties and recorded with the correct government entities. We coordinate the payments of invoices listed on the statements and issue your final title policy. After the closing, the Buyer may need to file their Principal Residence Exemption and their Property Transfer Affidavit. If the parties agreed to the seller occupying the property after closing, the Buyer and Seller will need to coordinate exchanging the keys and filling out a Direction for Disbursement so that the Occupancy Escrow and/or Security Deposit (if there was one) can be released to the correct parties. Many people elect to bring a paper copy of this document when they meet with the seller to exchange the keys so it can be completed in real time and leaves little room for error. Be sure that all fields are completed to avoid delays.