Pre‑drywall, final walk, eleven months: the three inspections that protect a new build

New does not mean inspected

The most common thing I hear from northwest buyers is some version of “it’s new, why would I need an inspection?” The city and county inspectors check that a house meets code at set stages. That is a minimum, not a quality review, and nobody at the permit office is looking at whether your cabinet doors line up or the grading pushes water toward your slab.

Production building is fast, many trades pass through one house in a few weeks, and small misses are normal. The good news is that a new home gives you three natural moments to catch them, and a builder’s warranty that exists precisely so they get fixed. The buyers who come out ahead are the ones who use all three.

The pre‑drywall walk: see what gets buried

If you are building from the ground up rather than buying a quick-move-in home, ask for a pre-drywall walkthrough in writing when you sign. Framing, plumbing runs, electrical, low-voltage wiring and insulation are all visible for a short window, and then they disappear behind board for the life of the house.

This is where I check that the options you paid for actually got roughed in: the extra outlets, the ceiling-fan prewires, the gas stub for the outdoor kitchen, the blocking for a wall-mounted TV. It is far cheaper to fix a missing box now than to cut drywall later. It is also the best moment to photograph every wall, so you know years from now where the pipes and wires run.

Builders differ on whether they allow an independent inspector at this stage and how much notice they need. Ask the sales office on the first visit, not the week framing finishes.

The final walk and the punch list

Shortly before closing the builder walks you through the finished home. Part of it is orientation — shutoffs, the water heater, the irrigation controller, the HVAC filter — and part of it is building the punch list of items to correct before or soon after you get keys.

Bring painter’s tape and take your time. Run every faucet, flush every toilet, open every window, operate the garage door, check each outlet, and look at the drywall in raking light. Outside, walk the grading and the drainage path, and read the landscaping and fencing against what your contract actually says.

I strongly recommend a licensed third-party home inspector before this walk, even on a new home, so the punch list is built from a professional report rather than a quick look. If you are relocating and cannot be here, I walk it for you on video with the list in hand. Get every item in writing with a clear note of what is fixed before closing and what is after.

Read the warranty before you need it

Every builder in the northwest — Toll Brothers, KB Home and the rest — provides a limited warranty, and they are not identical. Most are tiered, with shorter coverage for workmanship and finishes and longer coverage for major systems and structure, but the lengths, the exclusions and the claim process are set by the builder’s own booklet. Some use a third-party warranty company for the structural portion.

Read it before you close, and keep it somewhere you will find it. Two details matter most: how a claim must be submitted, usually in writing through a portal, and what counts as normal settling or homeowner maintenance. Nail pops and small drywall cracks as a house settles through its first Las Vegas summer are common; how the builder handles them is in the booklet.

The eleven‑month walk is the one people skip

Put a reminder on your calendar for about eleven months after closing. By then the house has been through heat, a monsoon and your daily life, and anything that was going to show up usually has — a sticky slider, a grout crack, a sprinkler zone that floods one corner, a door that no longer latches.

Keep a running list and photos all year, then submit them together before the first-year coverage ends. A second independent inspection at this point is worth considering. Once that window closes, the same repairs are on you, so do not let it lapse because life got busy.

How I fit this into your search

When we compare communities, from Skye Canyon to Tule Springs and Kyle Canyon, I ask each builder the same questions: is a pre-drywall walk offered, are outside inspectors welcome, and what does the warranty booklet actually cover. Those answers are part of the comparison, alongside the offers on the Northwest builder incentives page — which I always confirm against the builder’s own site before you rely on them.

If you are still weighing a new build against a finished home, the MLS map shows resale around any of these communities, and the latest In the Know carries what moved in the northwest this cycle.

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