The transaction coordinator checklist for every file

1. Intake: the day the contract arrives

The first hour on a new file decides how the next month goes. Get these right and every later task has a date to hang from.

• Get the fully executed contract, every page, with every signature and initial. Check signature lines for blanks before anything else.
• Record the parties: buyer, seller, both agents, lender, attorney or title company, and how each prefers to be contacted.
• Record the property address, price and deposit amounts.
• Record every date: offer acceptance, inspection, Purchase and Sale where used, appraisal, mortgage commitment, closing. Note which are deadlines (contingencies) and which are events.
• Confirm which side you represent, and whether it is a buyer or listing file, so the right checklist is used.

2. Date every task from the contract

Turn the dates into a task list. Each task gets a due date counted from one anchor: the inspection review the day after inspection, the appraisal check about a week before closing, the walkthrough a few days before closing. Write down which anchor each task counts from; that is what lets you re-date the file correctly when something moves.

The default buyer and seller task lists, with their timing, are on the buyer checklist and the listing checklist.

3. The introductory email

Send one email on day one to every professional on the file: the other agent, the lender, and the attorney or title company. Introduce yourself and the agent, say who handles what, and attach the executed contract. It saves a dozen “who do I send this to?” messages later.

4. Watch every contingency

• Inspection: booked on day one, report reviewed the day after, any repair request drafted and sent before the deadline.
• Financing: stay in touch with the lender, and send the commitment letter to the other side the day it arrives.
• Appraisal: confirm it was ordered and completed well before closing; flag a low value to the agent immediately.
• Local requirements: certificates, reports and condo or HOA documents ordered early on listing files.

A deadline that passes silently is the costliest mistake on a file. See the contract deadline tracker guide for how to track them.

5. Chase what is missing, every day

Most of a coordinator’s day is chasing: a date that is not set yet, a document that has not come back, a lender who has gone quiet. Keep a short list of who is waiting on whom, oldest first, and work it every morning. A file waiting on a date it cannot get should be visible, not buried.

6. Keep the client informed

Clients should hear something at every milestone, from their agent. A coordinator can prepare the update; the agent sends it, from their own number. What to text your client at each stage has wording for every one.

7. Clear to close and closing

• Confirm clear to close with the lender and ask what the client must bring.
• Send the client the final steps email.
• Send commission documents to the closing attorney or title company.
• Coordinate the final walkthrough, then confirm it and the closing date, time and place with every party the day before.

8. Close out the file

• Update the MLS and your brokerage and database systems.
• Store the final documents where your brokerage requires.
• Schedule the post-move check-in, the review request and the one-year anniversary message.

Running many files at once

With five files, a spreadsheet works. With twenty, the problem is not the list but the view: what is due today across every file, and what moved since yesterday. HomeAxis puts every file’s tasks on one Today screen and every closing on one calendar, re-dates tasks when an amendment is snapped, and drafts the messages. See HomeAxis for transaction coordinators, or HomeAxis compared with a spreadsheet.