Why I Do Walkthroughs
4/29/2026
What a cute picture above right? Except he’s doing something he’s not supposed to… That’s what it feels like sometimes when I go into a house the day before closing is supposed to happen. I think that everyone has been behaving nicely, everything is in order and then I start looking around and things are just… missing. For those of you who have purchased a home with me, you know I try to do walkthroughs on homes that aren’t being rented, just to kind of make sure that everything it in its place.
But what happens if things are out of place the day before closing? What if someone tried to run off with a whole bag of treats (or a car full of paintings)?
Furnished Means Furnished
Here at the beach most of our homes are in rental programs - either with a rental company or an AirBnB or even just long-term rented. When someone sells a vacation rental home they typically sell it furnished, mostly because you can’t take out all the furniture on a Thursday during closing when there are guests in the house! It’s also very convenient for buyers because they don’t have to go out and buy all new furniture at once before they can rent the place out. It’s convenient for sellers because they don’t have to drive down and move everything out before closing day.
We use a document called a “Bill of Sale” to cover this part of the real estate transaction. The seller agrees to convey a list of specific items to the buyer, and here’s a screenshot of that list -
Appliances (like a dishwasher or stove) are pretty obvious. I do write “Washer, Dryer, Refrigerator” in my offer documents just to make sure that everyone is clear that “washer, dryer, refrigerator” are to be included in the sale. Have you ever had a special relationship with your refrigerator? I’ve had people try to take the refrigerator out of a house before because they really liked it. Outdoor furniture can be expensive - things like deck chairs, pool furniture, those are not cheap if you want the polywood stuff that holds up well here at the beach. All interior furnishings means couches, beds, dressers, nightstands, and that can add up to tens of thousands of dollars of value on a large house.
You can see from that list that it pretty much includes everything in the house, even the contents of the drawers in the kitchen. And all of that is to convey with the sale of the property - the buyer should receive all of that.
But sometimes when I do a walkthrough, I notice some things are missing!
”ALL Pictures And Other Decorating Items”
This is the one that seems to be the most problematic. It’s easy to address this issue because on our Bill of Sale document there’s a line just below that section that says “Items that are NOT included” and the seller can write out everything that doesn’t go with the house. If you have a lot of pictures of family vacations or special art pieces in the house and you don’t specifically exclude them, the buyer might expect them to be in the house when they walk in for the first time after closing.
I’ve had to meet sellers in Virginia Beach who attempted to abscond with artwork. I literally had to retrieve a large painting from someone that was the centerpiece of the living room. I had one closing where the seller said that a few pieces of art were sentimental, that his wife’s mother had painted them. As it turns out she must have been one heck of a multimedia artist because there were paintings, pottery, carvings and all sorts of decor missing from the top floor of the house. The walls were pretty much barren on the entire top floor!
This is the main reason I do walkthroughs - I have seen this happen so many times over the years. It amazes me that someone can sell a $2m house but go in 2 or 3 days before closing and take down items specifically listed on the Bill of Sale document. I always try to tell my sellers that if you want to keep something, put it in an owner closet or take it out of the house before I get the listing photos done. That way there’s no picture to refer back to that has the items in question, and the buyer never had an expectation that they would be included.
Furnished means furnished! Sometimes I see that a seller left lights on, or a dryer still has clothes in it, or any number of small things on these walkthroughs. But the number one thing that I notice is a seller who promised all of the furnishings (and artwork!) and decided that they could take things out of the house right before closing. It costs money to go to Home Goods and buy some wall art, it costs a lot of money to buy original artwork from local artists. Some of those items are integral parts of the home and the rental experience too. I had one group of folks staying in a rental property ask me what happened to a painting of someone fishing that hung over the fireplace. They remembered that painting because they stayed in the same home year after year and took a vacation to the OBX as a family every year.
The seller left all of the furnishings but put a few things on the exclusion list - one of them was that painting of an old man surf fishing. He took that with him when he sold the house. So even if we think a painting or a piece of art in a rental house isn’t a big deal, you might be surprised at how many of the little things add up to make a vacation home special. Not just to the seller, but maybe to the buyer and the guests who stay in the home as well.
It’s All About Trust
At the end of the day, it’s just something that bothers me as an agent. I usually represent buyers who feel like something is underhanded or shady about the whole situation when I tell them that items were missing. Then the question is always “well what else do you think they took?” Then it’s sort of a game of detective where I go through listing photos and my video walkthroughs and start documenting all the things that were missing. And sometimes it’s much more than the few things I noticed on the final walkthrough. I don’t want anyone to have a negative experience during the homebuying process - I want to exceed their expectations every time. But when a seller removes items he promised to leave behind, it just creates an aura of suspicion or worry right before closing day, and I really dislike that.
I want both sides to have clear expectations about what is and isn’t part of the sale of a property. And I’ve had listing agents kind of sigh and say “we told them to just write down what they didn’t want to include in the Bill of Sale.” But then the seller might really have a picture or a piece of art that is special to them, that is really a personal item they want to keep. So I can understand that too.
By declaring specifically what you want to keep and sticking to the written Bill of Sale contract, it’s not too hard to have everyone feel good about a transaction that went exactly the way they expected it to!
Tweet Of The Week
As many of you know, Real is my brokerage and I’ve been very happy working as a Real agent for the past ~3 years or so. I remember having almost that exact conversation with someone who owned a “brick and mortar” brokerage when I made the jump to Real. Not too long ago, another tech-centric brokerage (but not a cloud brokerage) Compass purchased Anywhere Real Estate which includes the Coldwell Banker brand (my former brokerage).
There are a lot of changes happening in the industry but my comment to the “brick and mortar” owner was that cloud brokerage was inevitable, and the old model of having an office in every town was not going to last. A cloud brokerage doesn’t pay for rent, utilities, internet, desk space, copiers and other things at hundreds and thousands of sites across the US. That costs a lot of money, and if sales volume drops, that’s hard to sustain. A cloud brokerage pays a core group of people at a central office, and then it’s up to all of the individual agents to use technology and marketing to establish a local presence.
While I might not have a physical office you can meet me at, I will meet you for coffee anywhere, anytime, and give you my full undivided attention.
Real provides me with a technology package (website, CRM, training, MLS APIs and connections) and it’s my job to turn that into presence. Sort of like “hey, I’m here, Stephen Smith - Outer Banks Realtor!” The Google ads, Facebook ads, the marketing materials, sure it has a small Real logo but it’s my picture and my messaging. My individual success or failure is completely on me if I don’t have an office or people walking in who want to talk to a real estate agent. Does it have drawbacks? Sure! I spent a lot of hours manning the desk at a physical office I worked at. Do you know how many people walked in and said “Hi, we’d like to put in an offer on a house?” Zero. But I miss chatting with co-workers, fellow brokers, and learning about situations that I hadn’t found myself in yet or hearing a lot of “what not to do” stories. I did have several folks come in and want to go look at houses and I really loved those random yet spontaneous house-hunting excursions. There’s a sense of isolation when you’re a solo agent working for a cloud brokerage, but I try to fill my time talking to clients and catching up with people or even striking up conversations with strangers waiting in line at a restaurant.
The difference between the business models, at least to me, is that with brick and mortar offices the business is the brand, but with the cloud brokerage the agent is the brand.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this - does the fact that I’m an agent for Real Broker instead of a more recognizable brand name influence your opinion of me? Did any of my clients have reservations about working with someone who wasn’t part of a more recognizable firm? Let me know! If you did, I’ll try to figure out a way to brand myself in a way that stands out.
10% Homes List
54 properties this week (Up 2 vs last week)
21 have been on the market 90+ days
29 are listed for $1m+
Local News
The OBX Soft-Shell Week is happening May 11-16. If you enjoy soft shell crabs, they will be in abundance here that week at restaurants and events. I have been waiting for O’Neal’s Sea Harvest to bring back the special softshell basket for years now, I’m going to call them every day that week!
The OBX Rod & Custom Festival is happening this weekend, already getting a lot of old muscle cars showing up on the highways. This is a fun event, if you want to check it out it looks like rain on Saturday but from 10-6 Friday they will be at the soundside event site in Nags Head, and some cool cars will be at various other locations up and down the beach the entire day.
If you’ve been down Old Lighthouse Rd in Buxton you know the Army Corps of Engineers has been busy cleaning up the former Navy base at the end of the road. They’re scheduled to be packed up and out of there by May 7th, things might look a lot different without all of the heavy equipment and staging that’s been there. There’s a meeting tomorrow night to go over the status of things, but with a new groin/jetty and a fresh round of beach nourishment, here’s hoping that beach returns to what it used to be - one of the best beaches in the US.
It’s rip current awareness week, Sam Walker has a nice collection of videos and stories on rip currents here at the beach. If you own a beach house I would love to send you a copy of “Surf Dogs Beach Safety Tips” to keep in your house. No charge, happy to send it! I keep a few copies on hand but if you have a place with kids books or a conspicuous place to leave it, you never know - a young person could pick it up, read it, and then be better prepared to deal with rip currents.
30-year mortgage rates were down slightly vs last week
Listing Of The Week -
154 Schooner Ridge Dr in Duck. If you have ever dreamed of owning a beach house right in the heart of Duck, this might be the one! With 7BR and 6.5BA, this home was built in 2021 and is just under 3,700 sq ft of living space. Listed for $2.35m, this home has some great finishes and some real appeal for vacationers - elevator, private pool, hot tub and bunkroom for the kids! It’s close enough to the ocean that you can see it, hear it, and breathe the salt air but far enough away that you can let the oceanfront owners absorb the wear and tear from being directly on the beach. This is a great neighborhood with multiple pools (including an indoor pool) and a fitness center. And if you want to beat the rush (when the full photos will be listed), you can check out the house rental page here.
Have a great rest of the week!
Here are this week's local stats:
There were 42 houses sold on the Outer Banks last week
Average sale price of those homes was $837,665
Average time on market was 71 days (6 homes sold in less than 48 hours!)
There were 83 new listings last week
Based on information from the Outer Banks Association of REALTORS® MLS for the period 4/21/2026 through 4/28/2026.
Detailed Market Reports
Curious about the market in Duck or Colington Harbor? You can click the link below for more detailed info on your area:
CLICK HERE FOR MONTHLY MARKET DATA BY AREA
(just X out “Polygon Area” (the entire OBX) and enter the town you want to examine)
It doesn't matter to me if you do a real estate transaction today or 10 years from now - I want to be the agent that helps you when the time comes! This email newsletter is my way of keeping in touch with my clients and friends, but if you think someone would enjoy the information feel free to forward or share it with your friends as well!
If you have any questions at all about the Outer Banks real estate market or your home at the beach, give me a call or send me an email and I'll be happy to help in any way I can.
Stephen Smith
Real Broker, LLC
stephensmithobx@gmail.com
252-216-9230
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