Welcome to the last in my series of 10 blog posts. Thank you for sticking with me for the past week and a half. I hope that by the bottom of this page, you will be completely prepared to go out there and purchase a home! Previous post: Step 9: Closing.

Step 10: What’s next?

So you’ve completed all the steps up to this point. You found a Realtor, you found a home, you made an offer, you signed all the paperwork, you closed, and now you’ve gotten the keys to a house that you can now call yours. What else could be left for you to do???

Well, first off, you want to find a safe place for all those papers you received copies of at closing. They are all extremely important when it comes time to do your taxes. Later on, they’ll figure into the home-selling process as well.

At closing, you should have figured out the status of all the utilities on the home. They need to be paid up to the closing date by the owners of the home. After that, you should make sure to transfer them all to your name to avoid any service interruptions.

About two weeks after closing, call your local property records office to ensure that the new deed has been recorded and there is an official record of your ownership interest in the home.

When sellers vacate a property, they don’t exactly scrub it down for you. After closing, the house will be ready for you to go in, clean it out, remodel it, paint it, etc. The sky is the limit!

From here, what you do with your home is completely up to you. Be sure to keep all of the proper insurance coverage up to date so you’re covered in the event of fire, theft, flood, earthquake, and so on…

Thank you so much for sticking around. I hope that this series provided some useful information for those new to the home buying process.

Happy house hunting. Let me know if I can help!!