Are you taking a Vacation?
With the summer season in full swing, this is a question we all need to throw into our scripts when working with a new client. Even when it's not summer, I advise people to always ask "will you be away for any extended period of time during the process?", because many times buyers don't 
realize they need to be around to help coordinate their home purchase or refinance - many people think they submit documents and then their job is done.
It's our job to educate them, our job to ask the right questions, and our job to make sure surprises along the way are kept to a minimum.
Especially during July and August, people take a week or 2 to get away for some vacation time, and the last thing they want to do on vacation is talk to their lender or real estate agent. While vacations and real estate never mix well, there are some steps that can be taken to ensure our clients can enjoy a happy, stress free vacation, while we're still able to do our job and keep things on track with them away.
Power of Attorney
If the details are sorted out and the final numbers are already known, a power of attorney can be assigned to someone the borrower trusts to sign closing documents or other pertinent disclosures for them while they're away & unavailable. This is usually a last resort, but it's very easy to do. With a power of attorney though, you need to be certain you trust the professionals working for you to avoid any surprises.
Give the keys to someone else
Sometimes during the loan process, we need additional financial documents along the way. We can usually get them from either a CPA or someone in an employer's HR office, but they'll need your permission to speak with us in advance. Before leaving for vacation, letting HR or your CPA know it's OK to help us by providing financial documents can be a big help. Give us their contact info, and we can run with it from there while you're sipping from a coconut under the sun.
Set a time to follow up
If you don't mind taking a short break from paradise, clients and lenders should coordinate a time to send/sign/receive any documents that need to be taken care of while a borrower is away on vacation. Most resorts have business centers where people can address anything that needs to be done with documents, and if you've already given the keys to your CPA or HR person, there's not much we might need as a lender that can't be taken care of this way.
With rate locks, commitment dates, and settlement dates to meet, time is truly of the essence in any real estate transaction, be it a new home purchase or a refinance. Thankfully, modern technology allows people to take vacations, get away from it all, and not slow down their loan process by doing so.
All of this coordination starts with just one simple question: Are you taking a Vacation?
I'd rather be in Tahiti.
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