Avoid Escrow Delays: Always Wire Earnest Money, Confirm Instructions by Phone
The fastest way to stall a clean escrow isn't the inspection or the appraisal. It's a bank transfer sent the wrong way. 💭 This happened to me this week. My buyer went to fund their earnest money deposit for their Purchase, roughly 3% of the purchase price, and sent it as an ACH instead of a wire. Escrow doesn't accept ACH, so the funds are being returned to their bank. That's about three days of money in motion doing nothing, and then they get to start over. Nobody did anything careless here. They used the transfer type they use for everything else in their life, because most people have no reason to know the difference. A wire moves same day if it goes in before the bank's cutoff, which on the West Coast tends to be around 2pm. ACH takes days, and escrow won't take it regardless. The part I want sellers to sit with is who actually absorbs that delay. It isn't only the buyer. It's the seller watching a contingency clock while everyone waits on a bank to unwind a transfer. 🏡 So I've started walking buyers through the funding step out loud before they ever open their banking app, and I ask them to call the escrow officer and verbally confirm the wiring instructions every single time. Wire fraud attempts are up, and the fake emails are convincing enough that a phone call is the only reliable defense left. Worth saving for the next time you're in escrow. And if you're a homeowner thinking about listing and you want to understand where transactions actually go sideways, I'm happy to talk it through — 628-259-8398. Oliver Davis · Fast Real Estate / eXp Realty 📞 628-259-8398 | oliver@soldbyod.com | @oliverdavisreal estate agent
September 11, 2026