In Contract: Escrow to Closing in San Francisco

Once your offer is accepted the clock runs fast. San Francisco escrows with a loan commonly run about 21 to 30 days, sometimes 30 to 45 (as of 2026-10-25, check current figures), and in that window the deposit, inspections, appraisal, underwriting, HOA review, insurance and title all run at once. Nothing in this stage is as strategic as the offer, but it is where buyers lose deposits, pay lock extensions, and discover that insurance was never a formality.

What good looks like

A well-run SF escrow is boring. The deposit lands on day one after a phone call to escrow to confirm the wire instructions. Insurance quotes go out the same afternoon, from a direct carrier and an independent broker, because the lender cannot fund without a bound policy and California carriers are slow and selective. Inspections, if you kept a contingency, happen in the first two or three days with the sewer scope and any specialists booked alongside, so the credit-or-walk decision is made with bids in hand. Every underwriting condition is answered within 24 hours. The HOA questionnaire goes to the management company in week one because it is the single most common cause of a late close. The Closing Disclosure gets compared to the Loan Estimate line by line, the walkthrough happens after the seller is out, and the closing funds are wired only after a second phone verification.

The biggest mistakes

• Wiring the deposit or closing funds to instructions that arrived by email, without calling escrow on a number you found yourself. This is the one error nobody recovers from.
• Waiting a week to request insurance quotes, then discovering that knob-and-tube wiring or an old roof draws declines and the FAIR Plan takes time to bind.
• Letting an underwriter's document request sit; conditions, not appraisals, delay most closings.
• Financing a car or furniture, changing jobs or moving money between accounts after conditional approval. Lenders refresh credit and re-verify employment right before funding.
• Locking the rate for exactly the contract period with no buffer, then paying an extension fee when the HOA is slow.
• Signing without comparing the Closing Disclosure to the Loan Estimate; overages beyond tolerance must be refunded.

In this stage

Start with escrow and title in San Francisco: who pays what by custom, the SF transfer tax brackets, your right to choose the title company, and how to read the preliminary title report. Inspections during escrow gives a day-by-day plan for a short contingency, the HOA review that runs in parallel, and credit versus repair versus walking. Appraisal and underwriting explains what the lender is doing week by week, how to challenge a low appraisal, and the freeze on your finances. Homeowners insurance in SF's hard market covers what gets SF homes declined, HO-3 versus HO-6, and how the FAIR Plan works as a backstop, and earthquake insurance lays out CEA pricing, deductibles and an honest worth-it framework. Closing costs line by line explains every entry on the Closing Disclosure and the tolerance rules, and final walkthrough, signing and funding takes you through the last five days, including wiring safely. If you later work with one of this site's agents, the buyer-side commission is how the site is paid; the checklist is the same either way.