Michael

My son purchased a home in LA last year. He wanted to live near downtown and there weren't very many homes available (most were be offered by flippers) and there was a bidding war for the properties.

He was originally going to use a FHA mortgages but because of the bidding war, FHA mortgages were low on the acceptable list since they can fall through if a FHA inspection doesn't deem the home to FHA requirements so he went conventional with a 10% down and after his bid was accepted, he closed in about 30-45 days.

sir_eccles

We had a short sale that was actually short.

Previous buyer had dropped out just as the bank approved the numbers. The price was take it or leave it and then the second lien holder found out he was going to get nothing so insisted it close within a month.

Almost forgot. We then rented it back to the seller for a month because no one was ready to move.

WEBlue

About a month for us too. We house-hunted for eighteen months previously, and had come close once before, so we were ready to be done with the whole business.

Saw the house, then re-visited it several times, put in the offer after a week of thinking, scheduled & watched the inspections, dickered the price down some more, then that was it. I will say, though, that our sellers were also motivated to move fast for reasons of their own....

Bayleaf_01

We built a house last year. Had less than a year of credit history when we started the process. Qualified for FHA loan with no problems, but as we had 20% deposit, we took a conventional loan instead. Didn't hold up the paperwork at all. It was 8 months from signing for land to moving in - but we did sign for a piece of dirt!

MsElui

Get pre approved on the mortgage, so that when you are in a position to make an offer all the difficult part is done AND sellers won't look at you as a total beginner and chose the offer which is further along.

Bear in mind here, when you make a written offer, you also say the completion date you want and in our experience that's has been a month later.
So whatever you can pre sort out make that last month smoother.

jibsymalone

The home we are in now was a cash sale, we closed in 10 days from making an offer and it being accepted (made the seller a lot more lenient on the price too!). Most of this time was to allow us to shuffle the needed funds around, i am sure we could have closed a lot quicker if we really wanted too.

GeoffM

Wow, 6 weeks seems common, and some even faster still. Thanks for the comments, they're really helpful.

Here's our situation for the record. We started up in what's called the High Desert, outside of LA. Yes, it's a desert so it can get rather hot and sunny in summer, and freezing cold and still sunny in winter. Dusty and windy on occasion too. We started up there because we had relations there, plus it didn't really matter where I worked. Then, after a year we moved into LA county. Schools were excellent (here), nice house, but double the rent (exactly double). Trouble is, we didn't really understand that rent prices here don't bear much relationship to house prices. So, not only are we not saving much money, we also cannot afford to buy a house here. Anywhere but here means switching schools for DS.

So we look slightly further afield. Small houses, many grotty, no pool, barely any garden, still looking at a big mortgage. So further afield again and we decide that actually we did quite enjoy our year up in the High Desert so why not move back? The wife can switch jobs - in fact already has an interview lined up tomorrow - and, again, I can work anywhere. Houses 50% bigger, vast amounts of land, and half the mortgage. Everything we need up there; just a little further some places, but at that price I'll take a comfortable mortgage with a nice house and big yard!

Closer to Vegas too

[eta] We just sent our tax worksheet off to the accountant to work his magic on. He reckons about 2 weeks so I'm hoping we can go the bank sometime in March. Does a prequal expire after a time though?

Bink

30 days for us. We bought a Spec/Inventory home and one of the conditions of us getting it at the price we did was closing in 30 days. It was a lot of work and chasing on my behalf to get the underwriter everything they needed to allow me to have a mortgage. I'd been in the US under two years and had about 18 months credit history at the time.

Michael

My ex lives in Ventura county and said the prices haven't risen much yet. I suspect the prices of homes in Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, or Camarillo are probably in a similar price range as Victorville and those cities are closer to LA and probably cooler.