So, you’re looking for homes for sale in Baton Rouge, and you’ve found one that you've decided to buy.

That’s great, but do you know what you need to do before closing the deal and moving into your new home?

Here are the necessary steps you want to follow if you want to make sure that nothing goes wrong as you cross the finish line:

1. Begin with the contingencies:

The majority of home purchase agreements will involve contingencies, actions you, the buyer, should take to safeguard against making a bad purchase or getting swindled out of your hard-earned cash.

For instance, the home inspection contingency gives you the right to hire a professional to inspect the house. And, should the inspector find a problem, you can either ask the seller to fix it or back out of the sale entirely. As for the home inspection costs, which tend to be somewhere around $300 to $500, you should be happy to pay them because they are negligible in comparison to the potential costs of finding a problem after the sale has closed.

Another type of contingency is the appraisal contingency, which enables your mortgage lender to hire a third party to appraise the home you are trying to buy and to evaluate its fair market value. If the third party discovers that you are overpaying for the house, the contingency gives you the right to back out of the deal without losing any money.

You should also make sure that you have a financing contingency, which protects you in case your mortgage lender refuses to give you a loan.

2. Taking the title:

Every home purchase involves a transfer of title, which is how legal ownership is established. Now, before you can close the sale, your mortgage lender will ask for a title search, and you might also have to buy title insurance.

Why?

Let’s say you decide to buy one of the beautiful homes for sale in Baton Rouge, so you go up to the owner and make an offer. Everything goes as planned, and the owner hands you the keys at the close of the deal. However, a few months later, you hear a knock on your door, and you open it to find the seller’s ex-wife or distant relative claiming that the seller had no right to sell you the house because they didn’t own the title. Instead, it’s the ex-wife or the distant relative who actually owns the home.

See how messy that can get?

To spare yourself this hassle, you just have to clear the title and make sure that the seller is legally allowed to hand over the title to you.

3. Make sure that the mortgage goes through:

For most people, it is nearly impossible to purchase a home without a mortgage. Yet, a mortgage lender won’t give you a loan without hiring an underwriter first.

What does an underwriter do?

Simply put, an underwriter has to make sure that you’ve been on the same level with the mortgage lender. They look at your mortgage application and decide whether you’ve represented yourself and your finances truthfully or not. They also need to ascertain whether you’ve made any false claims or not.

This means checking your credit score and reviewing your home appraisal. Underwriters will also look to see if your financial portfolio has changed in any significant way since getting pre-approval for the loan.

4. Go over your closing disclosure:

Assuming that the loan goes through, you need to check the closing disclosure sent to you by your mortgage lender, which is a document that details both the terms and the costs of your loan. By reviewing this document, you will know exactly what you are supposed to pay, how long the loan will last, and how many additional fees you have to cough up.

Once you have your closing disclosure, you should compare it with the initial loan estimate you received when you first applied for a loan. Should there be any startling difference between the two, you need to understand where that came from, so don’t be afraid to ask your lender.

5. Go through one more walk-through:

You’re at the home stretch.

Right before closing, you need to do one last walk-through. The objective here is twofold. On the one hand, you want to be sure that the previous owner has vacated the home. On the other hand, you need to check and see whether the home’s condition is the same as that agreed upon in the contract. So, any problems your home inspector found should have been resolved.

If all is as it should be, then the only thing left for you is to head to the closing table and sign a ton of papers. You will also need to bring along with you several documents, including proof of homeowners insurance, your home inspection reports, and a copy of the contract with the seller. And, once it’s all over, you’ll be leaving the table with the keys to your brand new home.