Though numerous roadblocks are preventing people from closing, many banks are attempting to go about ‘business as usual’ — only there’s nothing usual about the home buying process right now.
The problem is that there are essentially two Americas when it comes to real estate. One America is digitized, and the other is not.
Approximately 2,100 counties across the nation have digitized their archives and document collection process, which means roughly 1,000 counties and county-equivalents haven’t.
For the counties that haven’t adopted an electronic filing process, closing is essentially moving at a snail’s pace. To close, a title search must be done, the deed must be recorded, and county taxes must be paid. However, this is difficult with courthouses limiting the number of people that can be inside at the same time, and obviously made impossible if the courthouse itself is shut-down.
For counties that are online, numerous changes are taking place every day. Here are but a few.