Buying From Out of State: Why the Final Walkthrough Is the One Step You Should Not Skip

Relocating to the Phoenix area usually means buying a home from a distance. You tour on video, sign on a laptop, and manage the inspection by phone. Most of that works well. There is one step where distance causes real trouble, and it is the final walkthrough. Here is the plain version of what it is for and how to handle it when you cannot be in the room.

The final walkthrough happens shortly before closing, after the seller has moved out. It is not a second inspection. The inspection, weeks earlier, told you what was wrong with the home. The walkthrough confirms three things: that the repairs the seller agreed to were actually completed, that everything the contract said would stay is still there, and that nothing broke or changed during the move-out. Movers scrape walls. Pipes under a sink get bumped. A refrigerator that was supposed to convey leaves on the truck. These are the things the walkthrough catches.

What trips relocating buyers up is treating it like a formality. A video call squeezed between a workday in another time zone and a flight the next morning is not a walkthrough. The person holding the phone decides what you see. Nobody runs the dishwasher through a cycle, tests every faucet, opens the garage door, or walks the backyard to check the irrigation. The buyer, exhausted and ready to be done, says it looks fine. Then the keys change hands, and any problem found after that is the buyer's to solve.

If you cannot be there in person, do three things. First, have your agent or a trusted person attend in your place with a written checklist built from the inspection report and the repair addendum. Second, ask the seller for receipts or invoices for each completed repair and dated photos of the finished work. Third, run the systems on the call. Water on, lights on, air conditioning cycling, garage door up and down, appliances started. A walkthrough should take long enough to do that. If it took ten minutes, it was a tour.

If the walkthrough turns up a problem, you have options before closing: a completed repair, a credit, or funds held in escrow until the work is done. Which one fits depends on your contract and your lender, so talk to your agent and your lender before you sign anything at the closing table. Questions about contract remedies belong with a real estate attorney.

This is general information, not legal or tax advice.

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Jon Hegreness, REALTOR / Associate Broker, Howe Realty
(623) 826-0888 / JonHegreness@gmail.com / License BR540940000
9059 W Lake Pleasant Pkwy, B-200, Peoria, AZ 85382
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