How to Buy a House in Texas: The Whole Process, Step by Step
Every stage from the first lender call to the funding wire, in the order it happens in Texas, with the deadlines that are easy to blow and expensive to miss.
Buying a house in Texas is a well-defined process with a state-written contract at the centre of it. What makes it stressful is not complexity, it is that several of the deadlines do not forgive.
Here is the whole thing in order, with a note at each stage about what actually goes wrong there.
Before You Look at a Single House
- Pull your own credit and read it. Not a score from an app, the actual reports. Errors are common and take weeks to correct. If your score is close to a threshold, small deliberate moves can be worth more than any negotiation you will do later. What actually moves it.
- Get fully pre-approved, not pre-qualified. These are different things and only one of them carries weight in an offer. The difference.
- Get two Loan Estimates. The form is federally standardised so two lenders can be compared line by line, and the spread on lender fees is routinely four figures.
- Set your real budget, not the approved one. Lenders approve numbers that are technically survivable. Model the whole payment, taxes at the reassessed value and insurance at a North Texas premium, in the affordability calculator.
- Sign a buyer representation agreement, which since August 2024 must be in place before an agent tours homes with you, and which states what they will be paid. What it should say.
Searching, Properly
The order matters here too. Decide the city before the neighborhood and the neighborhood before the house, because the first two cannot be renovated.
- Verify the school district at the address, not the city. In this metro the district line runs through cities constantly.
- Pull the full tax picture for the parcel, including any MUD or PID. How to do it in five minutes.
- Get an insurance quote on a representative address before you are emotionally committed. It is free and the answers vary.
- Drive the street at 8am, 6pm and on a Friday night. Nothing substitutes for this.
The Offer and the Promulgated Contract
Texas residential resale offers are written on a form produced by the Texas Real Estate Commission. The current One to Four Family Residential Contract (Resale) is TREC No. 20-19, effective 1 July 2026. You are not drafting a contract; you are filling in the negotiated terms of one.
The variables you actually control:
- Price, and how it is financed
- Option fee and option period length
- Earnest money amount
- Closing date and possession
- Who pays the survey, the title policy, and any closing cost contribution
- What conveys with the house
Price is one lever of nine and often not the one that wins. The other eight. New construction is a different situation entirely, because builders use their own contracts rather than the TREC form: what changes on a new build.
The Option Period: Your One Clean Exit
Once the contract is executed, the clock starts. The termination option in paragraph 5B gives you an unrestricted right to terminate for any reason within the negotiated number of days, with your earnest money refunded and the option fee kept by the seller.
Three things that catch people, all covered in depth in the dedicated post:
- Days are calendar days, counted from the day after the effective date.
- The end of the option period does not roll forward off a weekend. Delivery deadlines do; this one does not.
- A blank option fee or a late delivery voids the right entirely.
Read the option period post before you sign anything. It is the most consequential page on this site for a buyer.
Order the inspection on day one, not day four. If it turns up something needing a specialist, you will want the remaining days. What an inspection covers.
Under Contract: Four Parallel Tracks
| Track | What happens | Where it goes wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Inspection | General inspection, then specialists if flagged | Ordered too late in the option period |
| Financing | Underwriting, appraisal, conditions | Buyer opens new credit or changes jobs; appraisal comes in low |
| Title | Search, commitment, objections | Objection deadline missed, so the right is waived |
| Survey | Existing survey with a T-47, or a new one ordered | Nobody orders it and closing slips |
Two of these have deadlines that are waived by silence, which is the single most important structural fact about a Texas contract. If you do not object to a title matter in time, you have accepted it. If you do not deliver notice of a financing problem in time, the protection lapses. More in every way out of a Texas contract and the week-by-week timeline.
If the appraisal comes in below the contract price, there are four ordinary ways forward and the addendum you signed determines which ones you have: the appraisal gap.
Closing, Funding, and Keys
Three separate events that people treat as one. Signing is when you sit at the title company. Funding is when the lender releases money. Closing is when the deed records. You get keys after funding, which may not be the same day you sign.
Before you get there:
- Review the Closing Disclosure at least three business days before, which federal rule requires you to receive. Compare it to your Loan Estimate line by line.
- Do the final walk-through after the seller has moved out, not before.
- Verify wire instructions by phone, using a number you already had. Not a number in the email. This is the single most expensive thing that goes wrong in a Texas closing. How the scam works now.
- Do not open any new credit between application and funding. Lenders re-pull.
What actually happens in the room is in closing day in Texas.
The Week After You Close
- File your homestead exemption. Free, once, and worth over a thousand dollars a year on a typical North Texas house. Update your driver licence address first. How to file it.
- Change the locks and the garage codes.
- Diarise the property tax protest window for your first spring. A recent purchase price is the strongest evidence of value there is. How to protest.
- Keep every closing document. They set your cost basis, which matters when you sell. Why basis matters.
The Five Most Expensive Mistakes
- Leaving the option fee blank or delivering it late. Voids the walk-away right entirely.
- Budgeting taxes from the listing.That figure usually reflects the seller’s exemptions and capped value, not yours.
- Opening credit before funding. A furniture loan the week before closing has killed more deals than any inspection.
- Wiring to instructions received by email. Verify by voice, on a known number.
- Closing with no reserve left. In a region where roofs and foundations are ordinary expenses, this turns a normal problem into an emergency.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to buy a house in Texas?+
From an accepted offer to keys, a typical financed purchase runs about thirty to forty-five days. Cash can close in under two weeks. The parts that cannot be compressed are underwriting, the appraisal and the title work, which together set a floor of roughly three weeks. Add your own search time before that, which is the genuinely variable part.
What is the first step to buying a house in Texas?+
Getting fully pre-approved by a lender, before touring anything. It tells you your real budget rather than your imagined one, it strengthens every offer you write, and it surfaces credit or documentation problems while there is still time to fix them rather than while you are under contract.
Do you need a lawyer to buy a house in Texas?+
Not usually. Texas uses promulgated contract forms produced by the Texas Real Estate Commission, and title companies handle the closing, so most residential purchases proceed without an attorney. You would want one for unusual situations: estates, contested title, complex seller financing, or anything where the standard form is being materially rewritten.
How much money do you need to buy a house in Texas?+
Less than most people assume for the down payment and more than most people assume in total. Conventional loans start around three percent down, FHA at three and a half, and VA and USDA at zero. On top of that you need closing costs, which cannot be rolled into a purchase loan, plus a reserve after closing that most buyers skip and should not.
What happens between contract and closing in Texas?+
Four things run in parallel: your option period and inspection, the lender's underwriting and appraisal, the title company's search and commitment, and the survey. Each has its own deadline and they are chained to the effective date of the contract. The option period is the shortest and the most important.
Run Your Own Numbers
About the Author
Licensed Realtor · DFW North Texas
Specializing in Plano, Frisco, McKinney, and Allen. Helping buyers and sellers navigate North Texas since 2015, with honest advice, deep local knowledge, and no pressure.
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