The imporatance of Doing a Walk through!

First let's start with the basics ~ The final walk through is the your last chance to check a property before you close on it. 
The walk-through should be done usually a couple days before or even the morning of the closing to make sure the home is in the same condition as when you signed the paperwork. I try to do the final walk-through with  buyers  as close to the closing date as we possibly can.

During the home inspection, if repairs were noted and necessary, it is now time at the Final Walk-Through to make sure that those items were taken care of. It's also time to check and make sure anything that was supposed to stay in the house, has not been removed.

A walk-through does not serve as recourse to get out of the deal, but it's sole purpose is to confirm the property condition. If something is not working that should have been fixed, these issues need to be brought to the attention of the seller's agent immediately. After you close on your home, the property becomes yours in the condition it may be in. If you were given the opportunity for the walk-through and you passed, in many cases the responsibility for repairing any items that need repair after the closing takes place will now be yours. Or worse you may end up in arbitration. At this point if the property is not being delivered as promised it is the buyers options to hold out money from the seller through escrow until the necessary items are able to be rectified or delivered as promised. A real estate agent is important to guide you through this action!

There is no requirement that you conduct a final walk-through before closing on a property, but you're taking an unnecessary risk by not doing so. The final walk-through can be conducted by you with your Realtor, or a home inspector, and the seller's realtor.

I can't imagine not having one last look to see if the condition of the house or condo is exactly what was agreed on before the closing.

In the Coachella Valley many homes are sold turnkey furnished and it is important during the initial inventory to photograph the items that are to be left and also a very detailed inventory list is to be agreed upon in writing by both buyer and seller. We as real estate agents are not used furniture sales people although it seems that way a lot of the time!)

Too often that 60 inch Samsung TV turns into a 32 inch no name TV or that fancy LG refrigerator gets replaced with a small no brand one.  Artwork also  has a tendency to be replaced. Towards the end of the sale as the seller is clearing out the house memories and a bit of seller's remorse kicks in and it seems that things get passed on to kids and relatives rather being left for the new buyer as promised.

It's your investment if at all possible be there in person for that final walk through so there will be no regrets, only joy when you receive the key to that beautiful new home!www.jennierobinson.com

These are very interesting times in the Coachella Valley Real Estate Market.  It seems that the seller's opinion is that the market has fully recovered and is back to top dollar pricing. On the other hand there are the buyers that still think that they can buy at last year's prices. I think we are somewhere in between. If you look at the sales over the past six month or comparables and this is what an appraiser will do, you will find the average price per square foot in almost every area that is about 20-30% below the average current asking prices. So far what is moving in the market are the more correctly priced homes, a little above last years values.  In many cases these aggressively priced homes are receiving multiple offers with bidding wars.

It is yet to be seen if the buyers sitting on the sidelines will jump in at these higher asking prices or if the seller's will get more realistic about the asking prices. One thing for sure, it is going to be a fun interesting and busy year and a challenging job to bring buyers and sellers together.

The market is in a healing cycle and we won't jump back to where we were 4 years ago but will heal over time.

Take a look at what the experts predict.

"There is independent data that suggests that the housing recovery is in well underway.  Veros Real Estate Solutions  (VRES) is a real estate data firm and it recently announced  its recent analyses of the twelve month period ending December 1, 2012 as well as its forecast for the 12-month period ending December 1, 2013. VRES indicates that “the national real estate market has hit bottom and is now in a full recovery”.  Veros Report. The analysis and forecast factor in 975 counties, 335 metro areas, and 13,586 zip codes. The statistics are updated on a quarterly basis. Veros predicts that the nation’s top 100 metro areas can “expect 1.2 percent appreciation over the next 12 months.”

Zillow recently mirrored the same conclusion as VRES.  Perhaps this is a start of a Happy New Year for all of those in the real estate profession. Zillow actually went so far as to predict that home prices would increase by 3.1 percent in 2013 and reported that overall, 2012 prices would end with a 4.6 percent gain. Zillow report The numbers were apparently based upon a survey of 105 “economists and industry experts.” The chief economist of Zillow reported that “an organic recovery in the housing market really took hold in the latter half of 2012” and predicted that the market is “well-positioned for continued growth, albeit slightly slower, in 2013 and beyond.”