How Long Does It Take to Buy a House?

It depends on how quickly the home you're looking at wants to sell. Typically, if you a pre-aproved, make an acceptable bid on a home, it's 60 days. We found a house we wanted badly right away and put in a bid they accepted. The owner wanted to get out from under the home and we closed in 35 days. I think with many people, the longest part is finding a home and going back and forth with offers.

Typically 60 days from offer to closing, but you could put in a 30 day contingency to work with your lease. If you are buying a foreclosure or short sale, the time frames are entirely different and much much longer. Short sales can take upwards of a year.

Almost 4 months. It took us about 6 weeks to find the place, then 6 weeks to go from first showing to closing day. We did not move in for 3 weeks because there were a few things (like fumigation) that needed to be done while the house was empty. Bear in mind, on that kind of schedule you will be having to take a lot of time off work in a short period of time. There were lots of meetings to sign paperwork, both with the real estate agents and loan officer (even if you are pre approved there is still a lot of paperwork you will have to provide to actually get the loan), plus we wanted to be present for all the inspections, check in with contractors etc.

If you do put the offer in, when you negotiate the contract you can put in there that you're not moving in until your lease expires. The longest part for us was finding a house we wanted to buy! It took us about 2 months from the day we looked at it to the day we got the keys. Depending on how organized you are with your paperwork and how good your credit is, it can happen pretty quickly.

It all depends...1) your credit and financing options. 2) is the title of the home clear? or are there judgments, adverse deeds, etc. 3) are you using an attorney, settlement company, realtor, combo of the aforementioned...4) are there issues with the home i.e. bad roof, pests, etc. There are several other factors. We closed in 7 weeks. When I worked for the settlement company, as long as the title was clear and it was a cash deal and not needing financed, we could close in as little as 3 days. My cousin took 8 months. There was a mess with the title search and a lot of people that had to sign off on their interest in the home.

It depends on lots of things. Do you have your financing in place already? That is what took the longest time for us...hubby was self-employed at the time and they wanted EVERYTHING, multiple times (monthly bank statements), it was a very long process!

Then when the actual 'looking' happened, that took a long time for us as well. We actually walked through roughly 140+/- a few houses and drove by and nixed another 100+/-. Hubby and I are/were very picky about what we wanted/needed!

When we finally found our house, it took roughly 35 days from putting in the offer and getting handed the keys. Our 1st offer was accepted too, no going back and forth on negotiating the price either. Lots of things have to happen in between those two things, inspections, title searches, etc. Luckily there was nothing wrong with our house on the inspection report/walk through or I imagine the process would have taken a lot longer with all the back and fourths of fixing this or fixing that.

~We were very motivated buyers and I believe we took the very first step, which was going to get financing in the middle of a February and we spent the first night in our completely empty house at the end of August.

So for us, it took roughly 7 months.

***EDIT***
We put an offer in on one other house and were outbid, we were disappointed at the time but the house that we did end up getting was FAR superior in EVERY way. So don't get discouraged if this happens to you too. Everything happens for a reason! ;)

From the time we found our house, it took about 3 months. But he deployed after we found it, so all the paperwork had to be sent to him and sent back so it all took a little longer than it should have. As long as everyone is doing their job (and sometimes you mught have to call them to get an update) then it should take less time then that! Good Luck on your house hunt!

Assuming you have good credit (ie no problems with financing) you can make an offer contingent on a certain closing date. Unless there are special circumstances most sellers prefer to sell within a few months. (though some don't mind waiting- depends on their individual situation). But it can take a few months to find right house/right price.

Personally I would see about getting pre-approval from a credit union right away (ours tends to have better rates on mortgages) for how much you want to spend and start looking seriously at houses six months before your lease is up. Right now you can still investigate neighborhoods/schools/prices to help narrow down what part of town you want to live in.

If you find the right house and they want to close after your lease is up, you can also ask your landlord if they will let you extend your lease for a month or two.

We were on a month to month lease, and even that was stressful because I didn't want two payments in one month (or to have to pay rent when my mortgage payment wasn't due and I could do other things with the money, like furnish rooms in a bigger house!) We actually found our house in March, and it was being built...almost done, but just to the point where we could pick the finishes we wanted. Yay! So it only took about 6 weeks for us. Other people take longer. It really all depends. If you put in an offer and get it, then about a month. If you don't get your offer selected and have to go through multiple homes or an inspection goes bad, it could take a while. Talk to a realtor and let them know of your time line. Or can you go month to month after your 1 year lease is up?