What moms look for when buying a house
Happy Mother’s Day!
What do Mom’s look for when buying a house?
Open floor plans, a mud room, and an office so parents can keep tabs on their kids.
Traditionally, when people with children have looked to buy a new home, they were more concerned with neighborhood schools, walkability and convenient shopping than with the actual layout of the home they’d be occupying.
But that is changing, says Jeff Martel, a Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate (BHGRE) agent in Boise, Idaho. “Ten years ago, the only thing families were looking for was square footage and a large yard,” he said. “Configuration of the home is more important now,” as people prefer open floor plans rather than separate dining and living rooms.
“We see less and less formal spaces,” Martel said, as floor plans with separate dining rooms aren’t as preferable as a larger kitchen, often not just with one large central island, but two islands. “Everything happens in the kitchen,” he said. “Kids use the islands now for breakfast, lunch and dinner,” he said.
Separate home offices are out too, replaced by an office nook off the main living space so that parents can keep tabs on what kids are looking at online. “You want a family office that’s very visible with a direct sightline to the kitchen,” he said.
Lindsay Alteri, who works for BHGRE in Raleigh, N.C., and is a mother of two young kids, said she’s seeing moms wanting the same thing — a large kitchen space, open floor plan and even laundry space on the same floor with room to fold laundry so they can keep an eye on everything. “What I hear is, ‘I can’t leave my kids unattended,’” she said.
Location of the garage also counts with many moms and parents, Alteri says. “If there are stairs to and from the garage, are you going to be willing to go up and down them carrying a child” in from the car, she asks.
Stacy Barry, a realtor at Century 21 Scheetz in Indianapolis, agrees. “You want an open area floor plan with wide stairs for carrying little ones and laundry baskets,” she said.
Barry, along with BHGRE’s Martel, says the garage should be attached with a walk-in area to the laundry for muddy kids.
“You want a ‘mud room’ that has a bench and some storage for boots that’s done in a hardwood or laminate where you can drop everything like backpacks and jackets,” Martel said. The mud room should be a separate entrance to the house from the main entrance so that guests don’t see it, he said.
Above all, as parents know all too well, “kids come with clutter,” Martel says.
As a result, Martel and Barry both say that, not surprisingly, parents want lots of built-in storage in bedrooms, attics, spaces under stairs and even hidden storage behind bookshelves where you can pile toys and clothes when company comes.
As kids get older, agents say that some clients want separate living areas for kids and adults.
“Young families desire to be on the same floor,” said Martelm but “as the kids get older, have the master bedroom retreat on the main floor, and have the kids have their own space,” with bedrooms on the separate floor and separated so they don’t share a common wall to allow for privacy.
As far as unusual requests that the agents have gotten?
Some ask for a ball pit or a bouncy castle in a recreation room. And some requests are downright weird. Mike Lombardo, a real estate agent at Old Glory Realty, says he’s gotten requests from parents for a bathroom with two toilets so they can do their business together, and a request for a second story balcony where they and their kids could jump straight into the backyard pool.
But he says nothing beats the request from parents to find them a haunted house. “They wanted their child to have the experience to play with the ghosts,” he said.
See more at…https://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-moms-look-for-when-buying-a-house-2015-05-08
P.C. Shutterstock.com / Iriana Shiyan