What Insurance Do I Have to Buy Before Close
There are two main types of insurance you'll need to buy before close - title insurance and homeowners' insurance.
There are two main types of insurance you'll need to buy before close - title insurance and homeowners' insurance. Both of these will be required by your mortgage broker, and are generally a good idea to protect a very valuable asset.
Title insurance protects you in the case of defects or problems with the title of your new property. Title insurance is generally organized by the escrow agent, but paid for by the buyer. The buyer will also pay for their lender's title insurance.
Homeowners' insurance protects you from loss or damage to your new property or the possessions within the property. A standard homeowners' insurance policy will cover losses from events like fire or burglary, and may cover if someone is injured in your home. The buyer is responsible for purchasing homeowners' insurance directly, and you can get quotes from major insurance carriers like GEICO, State Farm or Allstate.
Depending on the location of your new property, you may be required (or want) to buy flood or earthquake insurance. This is similar to homeowners' insurance in that it would cover property and possessions, but would extend the types of events covered to included floods and earthquakes. Your homeowners' insurance carrier should be able to offer flood and earthquake insurance in addition to your homeowners' insurance.
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We cover the entire Bay Area. We've helped clients buy homes in San Francisco, North Bay, East Bay and South Bay. We also cover LA and San Diego in Southern California.
We provide all of the services of a traditional real estate agent, with better data-driven tools, increased transparency and more responsive customer service. We can help with as little or as much of the home-buying process as you require. Some clients come to us with a home already found and a price in mind, and need assistance with assessing the home and executing the transaction. Others are still figuring out their budget, what they're looking for, and advice on where to focus their search. Wherever you are in your home buying journey, we’re here to seamlessly guide you through your home buying process - finding the right home, valuing it, understanding the disclosures, submitting a competitive offer, and closing the transaction. We're with you from start to finish.
Yes. Unlocked is a fully-licensed California brokerage (CalDRE #02060530) and all of our agents are fully-licensed California sales agents and members of the California Association of Realtors (TM) and the National Association of Realtors (TM).
With Unlocked, you’ll be working with one of our fully-licensed real estate agents to get all of the services provided by a traditional real estate agent, with better data-driven tools, increased transparency and more responsive customer service. So in many respects, your buying experience will be the same as working with a traditional real estate agent - only better!
In terms of how we’re different, firstly, we offer 1% cash back. This is the largest buyer’s rebate in California (that we know about)! That is tens of thousands of dollars that you can put that towards buying new furniture, renovating your kitchen and bathrooms or throwing that all important housewarming party (or more responsible uses like paying down your mortgage).
Secondly, our backgrounds are different than traditional real estate agents. We are a Stanford MBA and a Yale Law JD, who have also worked at some of the top management consulting, law and private equity firms (Bain & Company, Boston Consulting Group, Wachtell and Bain Capital). We leverage our data-driven, customer-oriented experiences to deliver a more insightful, analytical and responsive home buying experience.
Thirdly, Unlocked has built custom analytical tools to bring data, insight and transparency to the key buying decision points and streamlined the buying process. For every home you’re interested in, we provide our Custom Valuation Report, an easy-to-interpret spreadsheet of recent comparable transactions, competing listings and third-party valuations, as well as our Disclosure Review Summary, a comprehensive summary of the 200+ pages of disclosures.
All-in-all, we’ve designed the buying experience that we would have wanted when we bought our homes, and we’re sure you’ll love it, just like our current and past clients have (check out our Yelp reviews).
One of our licensed real estate agents personally leads each transaction and will be your day-to-day point of contact throughout your home buying journey. We work closely as a team, and are able to jump in for each other if and when you have a time-sensitive request.