What are the pitfalls between contract and closing?

What are the pitfalls between contract and closing that can make the sale fall through?

Also what are the steps that happen after the contracts?

After contract, your lawyer should do a title search right away, that takes a long time, and it held us up from closing.

You also should secure a mortgage as soon as possible....that takes a few weeks as well.

We actually fired our first mortgage broker, he kept asking for more and more info and wouldnt lock us in at a rate. We gave him paystubs, W2's, copy of our contract, bank statements, you name it we gave it to him and after 2 weeks, we still couldnt get him to lock us at anything, then we finally got him to give us a number, he said 'The best I can do is 6.25%'....I was not taking that, so we went with someone else and locked in at 5.875%, that one, we gave them a third of the info the first guy was asking for, and they locked us in within 2 days of contacting them. Dont let anyone jerk you around!

Also, it helps I think that I was in constant contact with everyone, I was emailing back and forth with the mortgage lady, making a nuissance of myself, but really, I dont think we would have closed when we did if I hadn't....ha!

Thats all I can think of right now....