What is the best Closing Date?

For people buying their first home the choice of a closing date is very important. It is not a   good idea to automatically select the last Friday of the month or the last day of the month as your closing date. If you are renting your existing residence and buying your first home then it is usually a good idea to close your purchase a week or so before the end of your last rental month. This will give you the opportunity of having a few days to clean, paint, do minor renovations and then move in a relaxed fashion.

On the other hand, if you arrange to vacate your apartment and purchase your home on the last day of the month you will find this day very hectic and stressful. Of course, closing a purchase on the 24th of the month and moving on the 30th ofthe month would result in your having to maintain both your rental property and the home you have purchased for those few additional days. However, this additional cost can be off set, to a certain extent, by the savings in the cost of the movers. Movers, in my experience, do charge less on an hourly basis for moves on slow days than they do on the busier days in the middle of the month and at the end of the month.

If you are selling a home and you have a mortgage to pay off then you are better to close on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, rather than a Friday. This is because the funds to pay off your mortgage will come from the purchaser of your property. These funds arrive during the afternoon on the day of closing. If this is a Friday, then your mortgage will be officially paid out until the next business day – usually Monday. However, if Monday is a statutory holiday the funds cannot be paid out until Tuesday. You are paying interest over the weekend rather than just to the next day.