What is earnest money?
Earnest money is a deposit you include when you make your offer to demonstrate to the seller that you are serious about wanting to buy the house. When you make an offer on a home, your real estate broker will put your earnest money into an escrow account. If the offer is accepted, your earnest money will be applied to the down payment or closing costs. If your offer is not accepted, your money will be returned to you. The amount of your earnest money varies.
When you make an offer, you will need to put up an earnest money deposit as a sign of good faith that you are seriously interested in buying a home. That deposit becomes a part of the purchase price and is held in a trust account until there is full acceptance of the offer. Typically, an earnest money is 3-5% of the offer amount.
Earnest money is a payment made to the agent when an offer is made on a property. This payment is applied toward the home if the offer is approved. If the offer is denied, it is returned to the buyer. Your REALTOR® can provide you with information about how much earnest money may be expected toward the home you’d like to purchase.
Alright, you are at the point of executing a Contract of Sale on the Columbia SC Real Estate home you want to purchase. You know what you want to pay, you are already Pre Approved to purchase this Columbia SC Real Estate home. You and your agent have done your due diligence, and barring unforeseen circumstances, such as repairs, termites, liens, etc…you want to purchase this home. You agent then asks you, “How much earnest money do you want to put down?” Wikipedia defines earnest money as: An earnest payment (sometimes called earnest money or simply earnest, or alternatively a good-faith deposit) is a deposit towards the purchase of real estate or publicly tendered government contract made by a buyer or registered contractor to demonstrate that he/she is serious (earnest) about wanting to complete the purchase. When a buyer makes an offer to buy residential real estate, he/she generally signs a contract and pays a sum acceptable to the seller by way of earnest money. Pretty much, you a
