I'll cover 3 scenarios

The quickest you can close with a mortgage

The average amount of time I see

The longest I've seen

Every market is different. Everyone's situation is different. This is just what I have seen.

The quickest you could close

Three stages here: Planning, shopping/offering, closing

planning

Let's say you get really excited about the idea of buying a home.

It's Monday morning.

You talk to a mortgage loan officer at 9AM, you talk for about 30 minutes, then you send in your bank statements, pay stubs, and W2s.

He emails you a pre-approval letter immediately.

He also tells you a price range to stay in your budget

It's already 10AM and you have a license to buy.

He also recommends a great realtor.

shopping

You talk with the realtor over the phone and she sends you a few sample listings that may or may not fit your preferences.

You dig a little more around zillow/redfin/realtor or your local MLS. You find one, send the listing to the realtor, she sets up an appointment for that evening.

7PM after work, you see the property and love it.

You ask the realtor if you think you can make an offer.

That night, your realtor emails an offer for you to sign, then forwards it to the seller.

Your agent gives the seller a deadline of 5pm the next day to accept or reject.

contract

They accept, no questions asked, no back and forth.

It's Tuesday morning.

Now it's time for your lender to perform.

You have a due diligence time to inspect the property, maybe negotiate some repairs, but your lender will take a little bit of a longer time.

Appraisal/disclosures

depending on the size of your down payment, and available local data, the lender may waive the need for an appraisal.

But let's say an appraisal is needed.

The lender immediately sends you disclosures. The rate and closing costs look in line with what you discussed, so you sign.

It's Tuesday afternoon, and you've signed your Loan Estimate.

The lender immediately orders the appraisal.

This appraiser doesn't have much to do, and jumps at the call. He gets the appraisal done within the week.

Meanwhile, your pay stubs, W2s, and bank statements were already submitted.

When you did your earnest money deposit, you did it as a cashiers check, so it has already cleared your account, and you can show proof.

Underwriting gets back to you the next day and says everything is cleared, except they need to see what the appraisal comes back at.

They issue you an initial Closing Disclosure and it's Wednesday evening.

Things still look in line, so you sign it.

The appraiser gives his report on Friday morning.

No issues with the property, and it appraised for the purchase price.

Underwriting reviews it, clears it.

It's Friday afternoon and you just got notified that you are cleared for closing.

closing

The title company says they need some time to 'draw and balance' so they push you to Monday.

Then the loan officer says there's a rule about the Loan Estimate needing to be delivered no later than the 7th business day before consummation.

You signed Tuesday.

Saturday is counted as a business day.

So seven days after Tuesday would land on a Wednesday.

You sign Wednesday morning. Money is wired that same morning. Title records new ownership later that day.

total time

You went from waking up on a Monday morning, thinking "I'd like to buy a house" to being a homeowner in 9 days.

Everything would need to go perfectly and there couldn't be any federal holidays. You wouldn't be able to take a day to review fees, or shop around.

You'd need to go with a lender known for speed, and you'd likely end up with a much higher interest rate than you could get elsewhere.

There are lending companies that build their whole business model around "speed wins" but it comes with a price.

Let's build on this example and talk about an average transaction

Realistic average time to close

Most people don't wake up and think "i want to buy a house today"

They've been mulling it over for days/weeks/months/years

Some take a little longer to get pre-approved, because life is busy.

Some take a few days interviewing agents.

Some want to shop rates between mortgage lenders.

Some don't want to pull the trigger unless rates, or their savings, reach a certain spot.

Planning can take people quite a bit of time.

shopping

some markets are competitive, and you might not get a contract on your very first offer.

Shopping for a home can take a while if you have something very specific in mind.

average lender timeframes

Without putting a number of days on planning and shopping, we'll say this:

Planning time + shopping time + 30 days = time to purchase a home.

In my experience, lenders take about 30 days on average.

If you look online, they'll say as far out as 45 days.

Appraisals can be slow.

Loan Estimates can take up to 3 days to deliver.

Underwriting turn times can take a few days.

Back and forth requests from underwriting can take a couple of weeks.

Appraisals can come back with needed repairs, which can take days or weeks.

The longest I've seen

Besides buying a new build, with construction time taken into account, I've seen someone shop for a long time.

She had a specific area and price point, and homes that popped up were subject to bidding wars.

It took her a year and a half to finally get under contract.

Closing happened in 14 days, but the time spent shopping was very long.

The longest time I've seen a lender and borrower take to close (a lot of back and forth with underwriting requests) was 45 days.

You might be somewhere in the middle

Not many people will start the search and close in 9 days. It may take you a while to plan out everything. Maybe you're waiting for a lease to expire. Maybe you have a very specific house in mind. Or maybe you're ready to rock and roll, but underwriting keeps nitpicking at your bank statements or employment history.

Time varies for each individual scenario, but I hope this at least helps spell out how quickly you could get it done if necessary.