You’ve settled on a house that you’ve chosen to make your next home, you’ve agreed with the current owners of that house on a price to buy it from them, and you’re ready to complete the process. Congratulations! Now it’s time for the final major step in your selection process: the final walkthrough of your future home.
As you might surmise from the complexity of the process, though, the final walkthrough entails much more than simply walking around the perimeter of the house once more and then signing a contract. This is your last chance as the prospective homebuyer to double-check everything with the house and make sure it’s all in order- and if not, work out the details of making sure it gets to be.
Here is what our team of experts at Drew Sineath recommends that you look to accomplish with your final walkthrough.
Bring everything you need with you to the final walkthrough
There are a few things you absolutely have to bring to the final walkthrough. Most importantly, you’ll need to bring your phone with you to take pictures of everything that you take note of- and speaking of, you’ll want to be able to quickly open up a notepad app in your phone to jot down some observations. On a related note, you’ll want to bring a phone charger just to verify the outlets inside the house work.
In addition, you’ll want to bring your contract with you to the final walkthrough. The contract will notate what, exactly, will be in the house when you buy it, as opposed to items and appliances that the sellers will be taking with them when they move out.
The final walkthrough is your best chance to inspect the bathrooms and kitchens
Naturally, the final inspection is your best chance to inspect everything, but this goes double for the kitchens and bathrooms. These are the rooms with running water, and therefore, where mold could have grown if the people selling the home were negligent. Apart from the fact that it can make you sick, the big problem with mold is that it can grow very, very quickly- oftentimes within a week.
You’ll also want to make sure that the faucets turn on and off properly. If they don’t, you could be buying a house with an unnecessarily large water bill, and you’ll certainly want that to get corrected before the completion of the purchase.
The final walkthrough is also your best chance to try out the heat and air conditioning systems
Take it from the professionals at Drew Sineath: you are going to want to make sure the heat and air conditioning systems work properly before you finalize the purchase. Nothing is worse than realizing the heat doesn’t work on a twelve-degree winter night, or that the air conditioning doesn’t work on a ninety-degree summer day. Yes, it has happened before, and suffice to say that the buyers were not happy.
So be sure to test out both the heat and the air conditioning systems in the house, even just for five minutes apiece, and make sure that they both do their jobs. Even if the outside temperature is not conducive to cranking the thermostat significantly up or down, better to be uncomfortable for a few minutes and know that it works than to be uncomfortable for as long as it takes to get it fixed- and have to pay for that as an added bonus.
Are you looking to buy or sell your home, and looking to find the right realtors to help you do so? Reach out to our team at Drew Sineath & Associates, and we’d be happy to help!