BUY · CONTRACT
Colorado home buying process. Price is one current.
Cash, property, risk, and time move together. The offer is useful only when all four still point to the same decision.THE OFFER
THE WORK
Four parts move together.
- 01MONEY
Price, credits, appraisal
Measure the amount, the cash-to-close effect, and the consequence of a low appraisal.
- 02PROPERTY
Inspection and documents
Connect findings to a repair, credit, price change, specialist, acceptance, or exit.
- 03RISK
Title, HOA, insurance
Clear what can follow the property or change its recurring cost.
- 04CLOCK
Rights expire
Every objection, termination right, loan condition, and deposit consequence has a date.
The offer is a schedule.
In Colorado an offer is written on the Real Estate Commission's residential Contract to Buy and Sell, and most of its power sits in one table of dates and deadlines. Price is the first line. Earnest money, inspection, appraisal, loan, title and association documents each get a date, and each date is a right that expires. A calm offer is one where every date was chosen on purpose, not copied from the last deal.
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The seller reads the price first. The seller's agent reads the whole page: loan type, down payment, dates, and what you are asking the seller to pay. Earnest money is the deposit that shows you mean it. It is held by the title company or brokerage the contract names, credited to you at closing, and returned if you terminate inside a deadline the contract gives you. In the Denver metro one to two percent of the price is common (PROBABLE; the contract sets the amount, not a rule). The deposit is at risk only after your termination rights have passed.
Deadlines are rights that expire.
The contract carries an inspection objection deadline and an inspection termination deadline, and you choose both dates in the offer. Before the objection deadline you can send a written notice asking for repairs, a credit or a price change; before the termination deadline you can walk away with the deposit. Miss the date and the right is gone, not postponed. Seven to ten days is common in the metro (PROBABLE), and the sewer scope, the roof read and the association documents belong inside that window, not after it.
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If the loan needs an appraisal, the lender orders it, and the contract's appraisal deadline sets how long you have to object if the value comes in under the price. Three things can happen: the seller lowers the price, you bring the difference in cash, or you terminate before the deadline. An offer that promises to cover an appraisal gap is a cash promise, so write the ceiling in dollars, not as any gap. The down payment and the gap come out of the same account.
The loan termination deadline is the last day you can exit for financing and keep the deposit. Title work shows what stays with the property after closing: easements, liens, covenants, a metro district. Association documents arrive on their own deadline and can be objected to. Insurance is quoted on the real address and roof. Each has a date in the same table, and each one closes a door when it passes.
The closing timeline.
Financed purchases in Colorado commonly close 30 to 45 days after the contract is signed (PROBABLE; the parties set the date). Closing happens at a title company: documents are signed, funds are wired, the deed is recorded with the county, and possession transfers on the date the contract names, which is not always closing day. The last week holds the appraisal result, final loan approval, the walk-through, and a settlement statement that should match the stack you built on the financing page. If it does not, ask before you sign, not after.
THE NEXT USEFUL PAGE
Keep the decision moving in order.
CONTINUE →WHEN IT IS YOUR HOUSE