The Important Reasons You Must Tour An Out-Of-State Home Before Buying It

If you are making a long distance move to another state and are tempted to save money by skipping the travel costs to tour homes, this is never a good plan. While buying your next home sight-unseen is possible thanks to the internet, purchasing a house without visiting it in person is a scenario wrought with a wide variety of potential problems. If you still aren't convinced that buying a home without having seen it in person is a bad idea, then here are specific reasons this is to be avoided:

You Can Only Use Your Sense of Sight When Shopping Online

When you are touring homes in person, you use all of your five senses to help evaluate them. When you search for new homes from a distance over the internet, you are only able to use one sense — your sight. This is a huge problem because it leaves you unable to judge a home's other aspects that would be obvious if you were standing in the home, such as its noise level, smells and uneven floors. You're also then able to inspect the neighborhood as a whole.

A Home Could Be Uninhabitable for a Variety of Different Reasons

There are many things wrong with a home you will notice in person that you won't have the ability to see online in photos, such as mold infestations, pest infestations, and foundation problems. For example, if the previous dwellers moved out because they were tired of fighting an endless and unsuccessful battle with bed bugs or roaches, you might see the tell-tale signs of these pests when touring a home, but you will never know about them if you only look at a home online.

The Property's Photos Only Show Its Best Aspects

The photos included in a property's listing are obviously going to be the best photos possible. This can be a problem for you as a buyer because they don't show anything negative about the property. Think about a photo of a child's bedroom that shows you how well a bed and dresser fit into the space, but because of its angle, it doesn't show you the broken closet doors or a big hole in the drywall located behind a poster. By viewing the home in person you can easily see these defects.

The Property's Seller or Others Could Lie to You

Finally, when buying a house without visiting it in person, you must rely on information from the seller, the seller's agent, and your own agent. If the seller or their agent make deceptive statements or don't disclose major defects of the property, then there is little you can do once you have made a purchase.

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