Offer on house while living overseas

[Constancia R.]

Hello, all. I have quite a few questions. We are currently living overseas and want to purchase a house in Indiana, as a rental investment. It will be a cash deal that we intend to refinance later. I've never purchased a house without being able to be there for the closing...or look at the house. So far, I have had my (inexperienced) son go look at it--it's not falling down. The Realtor seems trustworthy.

We will have the offer contingent on our approval of inspections. It's a wood-frame house, so we will have insect inspection included.

We'll also included that it must have a clear, marketable title.

I am thinking that we should put something in there that states that we will need to close within a certain time frame, too, since we intend to pay cash and the property is part of an estate--I don't want to end up waiting a year and tied to it, while it sits empty.

1) What is a good target closing date and how would we even word that?

2) From start to finish on a long-distance sale, can I just have them FedEx the docs and sign them with a notary, or is there a better way to handle things?

3) I know to direct the earnest money deposit to the realty company, but what is the best way to handle that?

Thank you. Looking forward to learning from you guys.