Purchasing a presale home has many benefits including selecting a colour scheme, customizations, spreading out deposits and much more. However, you also need to wait for your home to be built and only see it for the first time when you are invited for your inspection – sometimes called a Deficiency Walkthrough or Pre-Delivery Inspection. Therefore, I wanted to provide a few helpful tips and notes as to what to expect when the time comes.

• The inspection is commonly done between 1-3 months prior to completion. This varies with each developer and ground oriented homes such as townhomes or single family homes can often be closer to your closing date. Low-rise or high-rise apartments often require more time to process the larger number of homeowners.
• Unfortunately your inspection is not the time to invite your friends, family or children. At this time you are walking onto a construction site so only those on title and perhaps your realtor should be present.
• You can expect your inspection to last between 45 minutes to one hour.
• Your inspection is a good time to bring a tape measure and measure room sizes. Unfortunately, this is the only access you will have into your home before you take possession so if you need measurements and photos, this is the time.
• Often landscaping as well as common areas (hallways and amenity spaces) are the final areas to be completed so don’t be surprised if these are unfinished.
• You should also expect that there will be some deficiencies in the home especially the farther away from completion you are.
• A developer representative such as a Customer Service individual will be leading the inspection. Be thorough and ask as many questions as you like – this is the time!
• You may also experience some variations in natural materials which is common. Using wood and natural stones like granite means that there will be variations and it may not match exactly as what you saw in the display home or even in your neighbour’s home.
• You should also expect that there will be deficiencies in your home upon closing. Although the developer tries extremely hard to keep it to a minimum, often there will be a handful of items that still require attention. You will still be expected to complete on your home providing the deficiencies are all cosmetic (non life/safety deficiencies).

Every developer does have a slightly different process so feel free to ask questions when you are contacted for your inspection date so you know what to expect.

[Pictured: Happy new homeowners have already moved in to their homes at Avra in White Rock. The timeline from writing a contract to purchase a new home to doing your Pre-Delivery Inspection will usually be much shorter when the building is already finished, like at Avra, but you will still need to go through the process of inspecting your home with a customer service representative to check for deficiencies before you can take possesion and are handed the keys to your new home.]