What's the Step-by-Step Process for Buying a Home in Texas?

Buying a home in Texas runs in nine steps: get pre-approved, tour and select, sign a TREC contract, deliver the option fee and earnest money, inspect during the option period, order the appraisal and survey, clear title, sign at closing, and take possession at funding. The sequence is fixed. The deadlines inside it are what decide whether you keep your right to walk away.

That is the short answer. The longer answer is that Texas runs a purchase differently from most states, and the differences are the part buyers get surprised by. There is no attorney at the table. There is a title company instead. There is a paid, unconditional right to terminate that exists nowhere else in the country in quite this form — and it expires at a specific hour on a specific calendar day whether or not anyone reminds you. The step-by-step process for buying a home in Texas is not complicated, but it is unforgiving about dates, and at The Agency Dallas we run it off a deadline calendar built the day the contract goes effective rather than off memory.

What are the nine steps, in order?

1. Get pre-approved, not pre-qualified. Pre-qualification is a conversation. Pre-approval is an underwriter reviewing income, assets and credit. Sellers in DFW read the difference.
2. Tour and select. Your agent’s job here is disclosure review and pricing, not door-opening.
3. Write and negotiate the offer on the TREC promulgated contract, with the addenda the property actually needs.
4. Go under contract and start the clocks. The effective date is the date the last party signs and delivers the executed contract. Every deadline counts from it.
5. Deliver the option fee and earnest money to the escrow agent inside the contractual window.
6. Inspect, negotiate repairs, or terminate during the option period.
7. Appraisal, survey and title commitment — the three third-party documents the lender and the title company need.
8. Final loan approval, closing disclosure, then signing at the title company.
9. Funding and possession. These are separate events from signing, and the keys follow funding.

How long does the process take in Texas?

Most financed purchases run 30 to 45 days from effective date to funding, and the binding constraint is almost always the loan rather than the paperwork. ICE Mortgage Technology put the average time to close a purchase mortgage at 36.8 days in March 2026 — the fastest in its tracking history — with all loan types averaging 38.2 days. That is the most recent month ICE has published a days-to-close figure for. A cash purchase with no survey issue can close in two weeks.

The market context matters for how much leverage you have inside those weeks. Across the Dallas-Fort Worth metro, active inventory sat at 4.6 months’ supply at the end of July 2026 with sales down 1.5% year over year and prices off 0.2%, according to the Texas Real Estate Research Center’s September 2026 Texas Housing Insight. In the city of Dallas specifically, homes took a median 50 days on market in August 2026 and sold at 96.9% of list, per Redfin. That is a market where a buyer can ask for an option period and get one.

The prevailing rate is the other clock. Freddie Mac’s survey put the 30-year fixed average at 7.03% for the week of September 24, 2026, up from 6.95% the prior week and 6.30% a year earlier. A rate lock has an expiration date of its own, and it does not care about your option period.

Which contract will I actually sign?

The TREC One to Four Family Residential Contract (Resale), TREC No. 20-18. It is a promulgated form: the Texas Real Estate Commission writes it, and a license holder cannot rewrite its body. TREC adopted the current version on November 4, 2024, and mandatory use began January 3, 2025.

Three changes in that version affect buyers directly:

• A seller with an existing survey may now deliver a T-47.1 Declaration, which does not require notarisation, instead of the notarised T-47 Affidavit.
• Paragraph 6C(2) changed from “Buyer shall obtain a new survey” to “Buyer may obtain,” and removed the buyer’s right to terminate under the financing addendum solely for failing to obtain a survey.
• New Paragraph 6E(11) requires the seller to disclose mold remediation certificates issued in the preceding five years.

Everything negotiable lives in the blanks and the addenda: price, financing type, closing date, option period length, option fee, earnest money, what conveys, and who pays which closing cost.

What is the option period, and when exactly does it end?

The termination option in Paragraph 23 is a paid right to walk away for any reason at all — a bad inspection, a bad feeling, a job offer in another city. You buy it with a non-refundable option fee, and it runs for the number of days you negotiated.

Two mechanics decide whether you actually keep the right:

• The fee has to arrive. The buyer delivers the option fee to the escrow agent — not to the seller directly — within three days after the effective date, extended to the next business day if day three falls on a weekend or holiday. That delivery rule has been in the promulgated form since the April 2021 revision. Miss it and there is no option period to exercise.
• Notice has to be in writing, by 5:00 p.m. Termination notice must reach the seller in writing on or before 5:00 p.m. local time on the last day of the option period. Every day in a TREC contract is a calendar day. Weekends and holidays count.

In DFW right now, seven days is the common option period, with five to ten the working range, and option fees are commonly quoted in the low hundreds of dollars. Those are current market conventions rather than measured MLS statistics. We walk through the timing in detail in how the option period works when you buy a house in Texas.

How is earnest money different from the option fee?

They do different jobs and they are not interchangeable.

• The option fee buys time. It is non-refundable from the moment it is delivered, and it is credited to the sales price at closing.
• Earnest money shows intent. It is held in escrow by the title company, credited to your cash due at closing, returned to you if you terminate for a reason the contract permits, and at risk if you default without one. In DFW it is commonly around 1% of the purchase price, with 1% to 3% the working range depending on price point and competition.

The practical distinction: the option fee is spent. The earnest money is only spent if you breach.

Who pays for the survey, the appraisal, and the title policy?

Texas has strong customs here, and every one of them is negotiable in the blanks.

• Title policy. Customarily the seller pays for the owner’s policy. Texas title insurance premiums are promulgated — the Texas Department of Insurance sets the rates title companies must charge, which is why shopping title companies on price gets you nowhere in this state.
• Survey. Under Paragraph 6C the seller may furnish an existing survey with a T-47 Affidavit or T-47.1 Declaration at no cost to the buyer. If the seller fails to deliver a usable one in time, the buyer can require a new survey at the seller’s expense. Residential survey work in Dallas commonly runs in the mid-hundreds of dollars.
• Appraisal. The lender orders it; the buyer customarily pays. Dallas appraisal fees commonly run in the low-to-mid hundreds.

If the appraisal comes in under contract price, the Third Party Financing Addendum governs what happens next. That paragraph is where a buyer’s appraisal protection either exists or does not, and it is worth reading before you sign rather than after.

Why does a title company close the transaction instead of an attorney?

Because Texas separates the two things an attorney does in other states. Closing the real estate transaction belongs to the parties. Closing the title insurance transaction can be handled by an attorney or by a licensed escrow officer at a licensed title agency — so title companies handle residential closings as a matter of routine, and most Texas buyers never retain counsel.

What the escrow officer does in that seat: holds earnest money and the option fee, orders and delivers the title commitment, resolves exceptions and liens, prepares the settlement statement, records the deed, and disburses funds. What the escrow officer does not do: advise you. The title company is neutral between buyer and seller by design. We wrote the full version of this in what a title company actually does in a Texas home closing.

What happens on closing day, and when do I get the keys?

Signing and funding are two events, and the TREC contract ties possession to the second one, not the first.

At the signing you review the Closing Disclosure against your loan estimate, sign the note and deed of trust, and deliver certified or wired funds. The file then goes to the lender for funding — the actual disbursement of loan proceeds. When funding happens, the deed records and possession transfers. Same-day funding is normal; a late-day signing can push funding to the next business day.

The contract’s possession language ties delivery of the property to closing and funding, unless the parties have signed one of TREC’s temporary residential lease forms for a lease-back or early occupancy. Nobody should be moving furniture on the strength of a signature alone.

What should I do in the first month after closing?

File for your homestead exemption. It is never automatic and nobody files it for you.

The Texas school-tax homestead exemption is $140,000, raised from $100,000 by Senate Bill 4 of the 89th Legislature and the constitutional amendment Texas voters approved in November 2025, retroactive to the 2025 tax year and in force for 2026. Homeowners who are 65 or older or disabled get an additional $60,000. Dallas homeowners also stack an additional percentage exemption from the city, the county and the hospital and college districts.

Mechanically: update your driver’s licence to the new address first, because the Dallas Central Appraisal District requires the ID address to match the property. Then file Form 50-114 with DCAD. The standard deadline is April 30 of the tax year, and a late application can be filed up to two years after the delinquency date.

What most often goes wrong, and when

• The option fee is delivered late or to the wrong party. The right to terminate evaporates on day four.
• The survey is stale and nobody notices until day 20. New fence, new pool, new addition — any of them can make an existing survey unusable, and a new one takes time to schedule.
• Title exceptions surface late. Unreleased liens, probate gaps, and old easements take days or weeks to clear, not hours.
• The appraisal comes in low. The addendum decides whether that is a negotiation or a termination.
• The buyer changes something in underwriting. Financing a car during the option period is the classic. Lenders re-pull credit before funding.

None of these are exotic. They are the five that account for most of the trouble, and every one of them is a calendar problem rather than a judgement problem. That is why the step-by-step process for buying a home in Texas is, in practice, a deadline-management exercise, and it is what The Agency Dallas builds the file around from the effective date forward.

Related reading: how long a new home is covered by warranty in Texas if you are buying new construction, which Dallas neighborhoods hold their home values best if you are still choosing where, and our neighborhood guides.

Frequently asked questions

How long is the option period in Texas?
There is no statutory length. It is whatever the buyer and seller write into Paragraph 23. In Dallas-Fort Worth in 2026, seven days is the common negotiated term, with five to ten days the usual range. Longer option periods are easier to get in a slower market and harder in a competitive one.

Is the option fee refundable?
No. It is non-refundable the moment it is delivered, which is the point — you are paying for an unconditional right to terminate. It is credited toward the sales price if you close, so in a completed purchase it is not an extra cost, just an early one.

Do I need a lawyer to buy a house in Texas?
Not as a rule. A licensed escrow officer at a title agency can close the title insurance transaction, and most Texas residential purchases close without either party retaining counsel. Buyers do bring in an attorney for unusual situations — contested probate, partnership or entity purchases, complex easements, or a contract that departs from the promulgated form.

What is a T-47 and why does it keep coming up?
It is a sworn affidavit from the seller stating that nothing has changed on the property since the existing survey was prepared. It lets the buyer and the title company rely on an older survey instead of paying for a new one. Since January 2025 the seller may use a T-47.1 Declaration instead, which does not have to be notarised.

When do I actually get the keys?
At closing and funding, not at signing. Funding is the lender’s disbursement of loan proceeds and it is a separate event. Once funding occurs, the deed records and possession transfers. If you have agreed to let the seller stay a few days, that arrangement belongs in a TREC temporary residential lease, not in a text message.

How much cash do I need at the table beyond the down payment?
Plan for the option fee, earnest money, the appraisal, a survey if the seller’s is unusable, lender fees, prepaid interest and taxes, and the first year of insurance. Earnest money and the option fee are credited back to you at closing, so they reduce what you bring on closing day rather than adding to your total.

Sources: TREC No. 20-18 and TREC form change notice (January 3, 2025); TREC option-fee delivery rule (April 2021 revision); Texas Real Estate Research Center, Texas Housing Insight, September 2026, and Option Period Basics; ICE Mortgage Technology, May 2026 Mortgage Monitor (March 2026 data); Freddie Mac PMMS, week of September 24, 2026; Redfin Dallas housing market, August 2026; Texas Department of Insurance; Dallas Central Appraisal District. Cost ranges for surveys and appraisals are contractor-pricing aggregator estimates rather than measured indices.