What Are New Home Buyers Looking For? Good for sellers to know. Formal Dining is out, convert that thing into a media room. New home buyers are coming back, but according to some reports, they don’t want the same old McMansion. They want a house they can use. That means a “great room” where everyone can gather – and a spa-like bathroom to escape from the crowd. But usefulness also extends to lots of storage space for big-box buys. It means “drop-off zones” for recharging smartphones and pet-friendly “puppy showers.” It means a home office actually designed for work and media centers made for play. It means big closets and little nooks. These new homes combine practicality with the way we want to live now, builders say. According to experts, today’s home buyers are much more budget conscious, a natural consequence of the recession. They demand more value per square foot. They’re not interested in rooms they will rarely use such as a formal dining room. Most of all, home buyers want a house that “works” for them. “McMansions put a huge percentage (of square footage) into hallways and formal spaces that are used infrequently,” said one builder. “It adds up to a lot of square footage. We’re building homes with 1,000 less square feet but every room feels bigger because the house isn’t so cut up.” Great rooms are the No. 1 requested feature among current new home buyers, real estate experts say. “Everybody ends up in the kitchen, so why not make room for them?” said the builder. “(Traditionally), most homes defined circulation zones with a lot of hallways. This gave us the opportunity to do something totally different.” One kitchen/great room combo had a layout that could double as a small restaurant. The L-shaped area had space for three dining sets — one adjacent to the kitchen, another for more formal gatherings in the living area and a third near a media wall that could double as a game table. Separating the kitchen from the great room, a 14-foot island served as a buffet and breakfast bar. Every eating area could see the media wall, anchored by a 70-inch flat-screen TV. New inventory and new designs can help lure buyers back into the market.
Posted on: Sun, 20 Oct 2013 22:00:51 +0000
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