Nobody mentioned there are two settlement statements until yesterday

What you're describing is a double close. Two separate closings on the same day, the original seller to the middle party, then the middle party to you. The middle party's profit is the difference between the two prices rather than a disclosed fee, and neither end of the chain normally sees the other number. That privacy is one of the main reasons the structure gets used, along with the fact that taking real title changes the legal posture of the transaction in some states. Whether it does in yours is a question for an attorney licensed there.

On seeing the first number, disclosure duties differ by state. Oklahoma, for example, requires profit disclosure even on a double close. Most states have no such rule for a principal reselling property they own. Separately, roughly a dozen states do not make sale prices public at all, so in your county the first leg may never appear anywhere you can read it, which matches what your recorder does.

Your title exposure comes from the commitment and the policy, and the closer insuring both legs has to clear the whole chain to write them. Read Schedule B and ask the closer to explain any exception you don't recognize.

The seasoning question @flint raised is lender policy and it varies by lender and by loan product, so get your loan officer's answer in writing rather than over the phone. If the loan is denied over it late, you lose your inspection and appraisal money, which is the concrete risk in front of you today.

I didn't know you could sell a house you bought an hour ago. Is the money for the first purchase just the buyer's money moving through, or does the middle person have to actually have 150k or whatever sitting somewhere?

@rigging both happen. Either they borrow short term money for the few hours they own it, which costs points and a fee, or the closer uses the end buyer's funds to close both at once, which is the dry close version. Whether the second one is allowed comes down to the title underwriter, from what I've read in the other room.

I'd push on price, honestly. Not because the spread is your business, but because you now know your seller has a hard deadline and a payoff clock the same day you close. Hmm, actually, forget that, @verity said she likes the house and is 11 days out with an appraisal already paid. Squeezing a seller who can walk you into a re-list is a bad trade at that stage. Ignore me.

One thing nobody has asked. Is there anything on the parcel that a same day flip would gloss over, like a shared driveway easement or a right of way the seller never had to live with? A person who owns the place for an hour has zero knowledge of the property, and their disclosures are going to be blank for that reason. Your inspection covers structure. It doesn't cover the plat.

Blank disclosures is the part I'd sit with. If you're renting it out, the previous owner's history of water in the basement or the neighbor situation is the stuff you find out in year two. @parcel is right that neither seller in that chain is going to tell you, because the middle one genuinely doesn't know and the first one already signed away.

Six years on a roof means you're buying a roof in five, and the sewer scope being clean is worth more than the inspection cost. That's a fine house to buy through a weird chain. I've bought two out of double closings and the paperwork was boring both times.

What does this cost the middle person? I'm trying to build the sheet for my own first one and I keep seeing the funding quoted as points without the second closing's costs attached.

@tally in the other thread on this board someone had 4,840 for one day of funding on a 182k first leg plus about 2,300 for the second set of closing costs. So call it 7,000 on a 32,000 spread. Depends heavily on whether your state charges transfer tax on both deeds.

The funder side interests me more than the wholesaler side here. One day of money at two points is an enormous annualized number, and the risk is genuinely small if the second closing is already papered. That looks like a real business.

@meridian it's small until the end buyer's wire doesn't come. Then the funder owns a decision about a house they never looked at.

So a double close is basically the same deal as an assignment with a different set of paperwork and higher costs? I've been trying to work out which of these I'd even want to do and this thread made assignment look simpler and double close look safer. That's an annoying place to land.

At my price points, 40k to 70k houses, the spread is 8 or 10k and 7k of closing drag would eat the whole thing. Double closing seems like a tool for bigger numbers, or for people in states where the alternative isn't available. Not for rural cheap stuff.

Before Monday I'd write down every date in your contract. If the lender says no on seasoning, do you have a financing contingency still alive, and what day does it die? That's the number that matters more than the seller's profit.

@anchor that's the practical one. Everything else in the thread is interesting and none of it protects the appraisal fee.

Seasoning language sits in the lender's own underwriting guidelines and sometimes in the investor overlay behind them, so a small local bank holding the loan on its own books has more room than one selling it on. Ask specifically whether they're keeping the loan or selling it, then ask the seasoning question. You'll get a faster straight answer that way, and get it in writing either way.

Curious what the closing office charges for handling both legs. Two settlement statements in one morning with a payoff timed between them sounds like a service somebody prices well.

Two documents to read before Monday.

Schedule B of your commitment, both the requirements section and the exceptions section. Requirements will tell you what has to happen for the policy to issue, and on a same day chain there is usually a line about the A to B deed being recorded first. That ordering matters and recording practice differs by state, some record in the moment and some have a gap of hours or days between filing and indexing. Ask your closer how the gap gets handled here.

Second, the payoff or release paperwork for whatever short term money is funding the first leg. If the funder records a mortgage or deed of trust against the property for those sixty minutes, there needs to be a release, and you want the closer to confirm the release is being recorded in the same session rather than mailed next week. I've seen an unreleased same day lien sit on a chain for eight months and turn up on the next sale.

Neither of those is a reason to walk. They're the two places where an hour of ownership actually leaves a mark on paper, and both are the closer's job to answer in a two line email.