Congratulations! After weeks of researching, your offer to buy that dream home just been accepted. This is hugely exciting. When can you get the keys? Tomorrow?

Not quite. My partner and I went through the process of buying a home in California in late 2015 as first time buyers and the process was one of the most daunting things we have done. I work in tech and she is a doctor; we are both reasonably organized people yet it seemed like the process of closing (which, if you are lucky, is about 30 days long) was one fire drill after another. Part of the chaos was due to the fact that we are first time buyers and did not have a good sense of the overall process. We did, however, build a Trello board for ourselves to keep ourselves organized as we learned along the way. Now that we are done with this process (thank goodness!), we wanted to open it up to other first time buyers so you can stay organized and close that dream home without a hitch! You can find the Trello board here: https://trello.com/b/9K9XVdOn

Key Notes:

I am not a realtor or involved with the real estate industry.
This board is based on our experience in California. If you are in a different state, you may have a slightly different process. Even if you live in California, your experience may be different.
There may also be other steps (e.g. signing a million disclosures) that you have to go through on an ad-hoc basis that may or may not be outlined here.
This board is designed for people looking to buy homes to live in. However, if you are looking to buy a home to flip, the process should be very similar.
There are some more steps that happen in the background by your broker and lender that you probably don't need to even worry about and therefore we have not included them here.
If you have any feedback to make this trello board more helpful, please let your suggestions in the comments section

With that in mind, this trello board should be a good place to start.

This board focuses purely on the process after your offer is accepted by the seller until closing. That was the part we found most challenging (compared to the process of finding the home, which was the fun part for us).

Good luck and happy home closing!

If you dont yet have a Trello account, sign up here:
https://trello.com/manulohiya/recommend