How to use this list
This list follows a resale deal from contract to the weeks after closing. Days count from the contract date. If the contract gives other dates, the contract's dates win. When a deadline moves, the tasks due before it move too.
Each step goes to the first one on this list who can do it:
- Berchtold. It sends reminders, asks for documents, prepares emails, runs checks and writes summaries.
- The client, in the portal. Clients see their deadlines, documents and next step. The agent gets fewer status calls.
- The agent. The deal's owner does the step. Berchtold prepares the email, document or answer, so it takes a click or two.
- The coordinator. Make your transaction coordinator the deal's coordinator. They get the tasks Berchtold works on. On any task, select Give to and their name to hand it to them. They can give it back the same way.
Three rules always apply:
- A person approves what leaves Berchtold. Each email is ready 3 days before its task is due. It waits in Approvals, under its deal. It also waits on the deal as Review and send.
- Dates, money and the deal's stage are suggestions. A person accepts each one. Berchtold shows deadlines, dates and money first.
- Berchtold never advises, negotiates, says what the contract means or signs. The licensed agent does that.
Set up
- Turn on the deal task templates in Automations → Templates: the contract to close and closing templates for purchases and listings. Turn them on for the whole team.
- Connect your email. Berchtold then reads the email from the lender and the title company.
- Link each deal's transaction, for example its dotloop loop.
- A deal already under contract shows Add the tasks in its Next steps.
- An automation made from an older template says The template changed. Choose Use the template's steps, then select Publish.
Contract (day 0 to 1)
Berchtold does
- Reads the contract and the linked transaction. It suggests the price, every deadline, the earnest money, the commission and the people.
- Keeps the contract PDFs it read in the deal's Documents.
- Checks the contract for missing initials, signatures and blank fields.
- Makes a task for each required document on the deal's side.
- Prepares the introduction emails: one to the clients, one to the other agent, the lender and the title company.
- Prepares the wire fraud warning to the clients.
- Sends the portal's link in the clients' introduction.
- Prepares the executed contract email to the lender and title company, with the contract attached.
- Offers to share the signed contract in the portal. You approve it once.
- Listing side: tells the sellers which visits the buyer's side will ask for.
You do
- Accept the contract's suggestions. Each one names the page it came from.
- Select Use typical days for deadlines the contract leaves open.
- Add the lender, the title company and the other agent. Each question opens Add person in the right role.
- Answer the questions about the property, such as built before 1978 and HOA.
- Approve the introductions, the wire fraud warning and the executed contract email.
- Listing side: change the MLS status to Pending.
Earnest money and disclosures (days 1 to 6)
Berchtold does
- Asks the holder for the earnest money receipt. When it arrives, the task is done.
- Asks for each missing disclosure. When a file arrives, its task is done.
- Buyer side: asks the inspector for times.
- Marks the current version of each document.
- Sends the clients a weekly update until closing.
- Offers to share the disclosures and the earnest money receipt in the portal.
You do
- Approve the requests and the weekly update.
- Book the inspection from the inspector's times.
Inspection (days 6 to 21)
Berchtold does
- Files the inspection report when the inspector emails it.
- Summarizes the report by area, in the report's own order. It never says what to repair.
- Reminds you before the inspection and resolution periods end. It then asks: done, extended or a problem?
- Makes the repair request from your list, word for word.
- Reads a signed amendment and suggests the new dates.
- Buyer side: offers to share the report in the portal.
You do
- Review the report with the buyer. Write the repair list on the task.
- Approve the repair request and negotiate the response.
- Upload the signed amendment and accept the new dates.
Appraisal, loan and title (days 6 to 26)
Berchtold does
- Asks the buyers for the insurance binder.
- Checks in with the lender before the appraisal and the loan commitment.
- Asks the title company for the title commitment and survey.
- Reads the lender's and title company's email. You get a phone notification at once about a low appraisal or a loan problem.
- Turns a request in that email into a suggested task.
- Suggests marking a deadline done when its email or document arrives.
- Scores each deal for risk every morning.
- Listing side: reminds the sellers about the city occupancy inspection, if there is one.
- Asks the title company for the seller's payoff and, with an HOA, the estoppel letter.
You do
- Confirm the appraisal and the loan commitment.
- Act on a low appraisal the same day.
- Review title issues with the clients.
Closing (days 26 to 30)
Berchtold does
- Asks the lender and the title company for clear to close.
- Makes the commission disbursement authorization and prepares its email.
- Sends the walkthrough and moving reminders.
- Reads the closing time and place from the title company's email. Then it prepares the emails that share them.
- Files the Closing Disclosure and checks its figures against the deal.
- Offers to share the Closing Disclosure in the portal.
- Sends the buyers a second wire fraud warning.
- Checks the file a week before closing and lists what is missing first.
You do
- Check the closing time and place.
- Mark the Closing Disclosure's figures checked.
- Confirm the wire instructions by phone, at a number you find yourself.
- Submit the file for review.
- Do the final walkthrough.
After closing
Berchtold does
- Suggests Closed when the title company writes that the deal funded and recorded.
- Files the settlement statement.
- Marks the clients as past clients.
- Sends a thank-you email, then a review request.
- Makes your closing gift task and your one-month and three-month call tasks.
- Sends a home anniversary email each year.
You do
- Accept Closed. Or, when the closing date passes, answer It closed.
- Listing side: mark the listing Sold in the MLS.
- Give the closing gift and make the calls.
Each morning
- Open Deals → Transactions. Each deal shows its next deadline, what waits on you, what waits on others and its risk. On the phone, open Under contract in Deals.
- Approve the emails in Approvals. They are grouped by deal.
- Answer the open questions. When a task waits for something, its button opens the fix.
- Hand off any task you will not do with Give to.
The daily review email lists only the deals with something new. On a day with nothing new, you get no email.