How Long Does the Whole Process Take?
| Stage | Typical Duration | What Happens |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-approval | 3 - 14 days | Lender verifies income, assets, credit |
| Search and tour | 3 weeks - 12 months | Entirely variable |
| Offer and negotiation | 1 - 7 days | Write, counter, accept |
| Inspection contingency | 17 days (default) | Inspections, disclosure review, repair requests |
| Loan contingency | 21 days (default) | Underwriting, appraisal, final approval |
| Escrow to closing | 30 - 45 days total | Overlaps the contingency periods |
The contingency clocks run concurrently with escrow, not after it. Day 1 of your 17-day inspection window is the day the offer is accepted.
Step 1: Get Pre-Approved Before You Tour
Pre-approval is not pre-qualification. Pre-qualification is a conversation; pre-approval means a lender has actually verified your income, assets, and credit and issued a letter stating what they will lend.
Do this first for three reasons: you learn your real budget rather than an estimate, you surface credit or documentation problems while there is still time to fix them, and your offer becomes credible. In markets where well-priced homes still draw multiple offers, an offer without pre-approval usually is not taken seriously.
Ask your lender for quotes at more than one down payment level, and specifically ask whether your target price crosses your county's conforming limit — $1,249,125 in Los Angeles and Orange County, $1,035,000 in Ventura, $832,750 in San Bernardino. Crossing that line changes your rate, reserves, and underwriting. More on down payment and loan limits →
Step 2: Sign the Buyer Representation Agreement
California AB 2992, effective January 1, 2025, requires a written agreement with your agent before you tour properties. It must state how that agent is compensated.
Most buyers sign this in under two minutes. It is worth slowing down, because it is a binding agreement about how much someone is paid on the largest purchase of your life. Five questions worth asking:
- What is the maximum you will be paid on this purchase, from any source?
- What happens if a seller offers more than your fee?
- What if a seller offers less, or nothing?
- How long does this bind me, and to which properties?
- Is the fee negotiable?
Where a flat fee changes this document. Roman's $7,250 or $9,250 is written in as the maximum compensation from any source — a ceiling, not a starting point. Anything a seller offers above it is negotiated back to you as a closing cost credit. Under a percentage model, the excess goes to the agent and historically the buyer never saw the figure at all.
Step 3: Search, Tour, and Confirm What Each Listing Offers
Since August 2024, buyer's agent compensation can no longer be advertised in the MLS. Your agent confirms it directly with the listing side, property by property.
Ask before you invest time in a house. It determines whether a closing cost credit exists at all — and if a seller is offering nothing, you want to know that before you are emotionally committed rather than after.
Starting your search? Roman will confirm what sellers are actually offering in your target area and price band before you tour anything.
Get My Free Savings EstimateStep 4: Write the Offer
California uses the Residential Purchase Agreement (RPA), a standardized form from the California Association of Realtors. The key terms you control:
- Price — grounded in closed comparables, not the list price.
- Earnest money deposit — typically 1% to 3%, held in escrow, credited to you at closing.
- Contingency periods — 17 days inspection, 17 days appraisal, 21 days loan by default. Shortening them strengthens your offer and increases your risk.
- Close of escrow date — usually 30 to 45 days.
- Requested credits — including the buyer's agent credit negotiated as a seller credit toward closing costs.
- Possession — normally at recordation, but negotiable.
The seller can accept, reject, or counter. Counters are common and are not a rejection.
Step 5: Open Escrow and Deposit Earnest Money
California uses escrow companies rather than attorneys for residential closings. Within roughly three days of acceptance your deposit goes to escrow — not to the seller.
Escrow holds the deposit, orders the title search, receives loan documents, prorates property taxes, and disburses everything at closing. Escrow fees run roughly 1% to 2% of price and are commonly split with the seller by local custom — but custom is not law, and the split is negotiable.
Wire fraud is a genuine risk here. Escrow wire instructions are a favorite target for fraud. Always call escrow at a number you independently verified — never one from an email — before sending funds. This is the largest irreversible payment most people ever make.
Step 6: Inspections and the 17-Day Clock
Your inspection contingency starts the day the offer is accepted, not the day escrow opens. Seventeen days sounds generous until you try to schedule four specialists in a busy market.
- General home inspection — $400 to $700. Book it in the first 48 hours.
- Termite / wood-destroying pest — $100 to $300. Routine in California and frequently a lender requirement.
- Sewer lateral scope — $200 to $400. Cheap insurance on any home built before roughly 1980. A failed lateral can run five figures.
- Roof, foundation, pool, chimney — ordered as the general inspection flags them.
You are also reviewing the seller's disclosure package during this window: the Transfer Disclosure Statement, the Natural Hazard Disclosure covering flood, fire, earthquake and seismic zones, the preliminary title report, and the full HOA document package if applicable.
Do not skip the insurance quote. In fire-designated areas — much of the Ojai Valley, parts of Ventura County, the San Bernardino mountain communities — carrier appetite has narrowed sharply and FAIR Plan coverage paired with a wraparound is now common. Get a written quote inside your contingency period. This is the single most frequent cause of a monthly payment landing higher than expected.
Step 7: Appraisal and Loan Approval
Your lender orders the appraisal, typically $600 to $1,200. Two outcomes matter:
Appraisal at or above price: nothing changes. The lender still lends against the purchase price, not the higher value — but you have instant equity and a better loan-to-value ratio.
Appraisal below price: you have an appraisal gap. Your options are renegotiating the price, covering the difference in cash, splitting it with the seller, or canceling under your appraisal contingency. In a market that has cooled from its 2022 peak, gaps are a live risk rather than a theoretical one.
Loan approval runs in parallel. Underwriting will ask for documents you have already sent — that is normal, not a warning sign. What genuinely endangers a loan at this stage is changing anything: do not open credit cards, finance a car, change jobs, or move large sums between accounts until after closing.
Step 8: Remove Contingencies in Writing
This is the step most first-time California buyers misunderstand, and it carries the most money.
California contingencies do not expire on their own. Unlike many states, the deadline passing does not automatically waive them. You must actively remove each one in writing using a Contingency Removal form. Until you do, you generally retain the right to cancel and recover your deposit.
If you miss a deadline, the seller cannot simply cancel — they must first deliver a Notice to Buyer to Perform, which gives you a defined window (commonly two days) to remove or cancel. Only after that can they terminate.
Once contingencies are removed, the calculus flips: your earnest money is genuinely at risk if you fail to close. Remove them when you are satisfied, not when the calendar says so.
Step 9: Final Walkthrough and Closing
Your Closing Disclosure arrives at least three business days before closing, by federal requirement. Read it against your Loan Estimate and question anything that moved. This is where your closing cost credit appears as a line item reducing the cash you wire.
The final walkthrough usually happens within five days of closing. You are confirming that agreed repairs were completed, that included appliances remain, and that nothing broke during the move-out. It is not a renegotiation, but genuine problems found here do get addressed.
Then: sign loan documents, wire the balance of funds one to three days ahead, and the county records the deed. In California, possession typically transfers at recordation — escrow disburses, the deed records, and keys change hands, often the same afternoon.
Ready to start? Roman handles every step above at a flat $7,250 or $9,250 — with anything a seller offers above that credited back to you at closing.
Get My Free Savings EstimateWhat California Rules Affect What You Pay?
California layers requirements and costs on top of commission that vary sharply by county and city. These matter more than most buyers and sellers expect.
California AB 2992 codified the written agreement requirement
Effective January 1, 2025, California law requires buyers to sign a written representation agreement with their agent before touring properties, specifying how that agent is compensated. It puts into state statute what the August 2024 NAR settlement established nationally — and it is the mechanism that makes a stated flat fee enforceable rather than aspirational.
Transfer taxes vary enormously by city
Every California county charges a documentary transfer tax of $1.10 per $1,000 of value. Cities may add their own, and some add a great deal — the City of Los Angeles imposes an additional tax on high-value sales that dwarfs the county rate. By contrast, no city in Ventura County or San Bernardino County adds a city-level transfer tax at all.
County breakdowns: Los Angeles · Ventura County · San Bernardino County
Disclosure obligations are among the strictest in the country
California requires a Transfer Disclosure Statement, a Natural Hazard Disclosure covering flood, fire, earthquake and seismic zones, and disclosure of known material facts. In wildfire-designated areas — much of Ventura County and the San Bernardino mountain communities — additional documentation applies. Errors here create liability that outlives the closing.
No commission rate is set by law, and never has been
The California Department of Real Estate does not set rates and no MLS may require a minimum. What changed in 2024 is that compensation must now be disclosed and agreed in advance rather than assumed. Full NAR settlement breakdown →
Escrow practice differs from most states
California uses escrow companies rather than attorneys for residential closings. Escrow fees typically run 1% to 2% of price and are commonly split by local custom — but custom is not law, and the split is negotiable.
Where Does Roman Represent Buyers?
The process above is identical in all four counties, but pricing, contingency norms, and what sellers typically offer the buyer's side vary meaningfully between them.
Related reading: Flat Fee Buyer's Guide · How Much Can I Afford? · Total Cash Needed · Contingencies Explained
How a Flat Fee Agent Changes These Numbers
Roman Doktorovich is a flat fee realtor serving Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura and San Bernardino County — $7,250 for transactions under $1.5M and $9,250 at or above, for buyers and sellers alike.
That structure is different from a discount realtor or low commission realtor, who still charges a percentage — just a smaller one. A percentage still grows with the price of the house. A flat fee does not.
- Buying: when a seller offers a buyer's agent commission above the flat fee, the difference returns to you as a commission rebate credited at closing — roughly $15,250 on a $900,000 purchase at 2.5% offered.
- Selling: you pay the flat fee instead of a percentage listing commission. On a $1,000,000 sale, that is $7,250 rather than roughly $27,000 at 2.7%.
Full representation either way — not a limited-service flat fee MLS product. See full pricing → · Compare against traditional commission →