Must-Have Home Features: Dealbreaker or Compromise?

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So you are thinking about buying a house for the first (or twentieth time)? What’s on your “gotta-have-it” list? The problem is quite often the final home ends up being some sort of compromise by the time the papers are drawn up. Must-have home features are just that though– deal breakers that cause us to walk away without a backwards look from a potential home.

The intent of this post is twofold:

• Beef up your must-have list (or start out with this list).
• Keep you from getting distracted by other eye candy so you get all your must-haves!

Let’s dive right into some must-have home features you may or may not already have on your list:

Short commute distance from work

Do you want to spend your time working on house projects or sitting in a car getting to your home? You save thousands of hours and dollars by living around the corner.

No HOA

Why should my house color be determined by someone else? I fully support my neighbor if they want to paint their house Pepto Bismol pink. It would be easier to tell visitors, “I’m the house to the west of the Pepto house.” *No one* would mess up those directions. NO ONE.

RV gate (or room to put one in)

Have an RV, trailer, want to install a pool, or store an extra car? An RV gate gives you easy access and keeps the city from complaining about your toys in the front yard.

Next time I would rather already have one in place…

More than one bathroom

While remodeling the one and only bathroom every time you go to Home Depot you learn to make a pit stop. It takes years to fight the urge to pee when you walk into Home Depot after that experience. ‘Nuff said.

A-line roof–the simplest kind possible

Here is my roofline. See any problems? About 400 square feet all come together and shoot off about six inches from the edge. This led to a HUGE problem about a year after I moved in.

No flat surface roofline

Rainwater needs to GO! Roof leaks become a certainty over time if adequate drainage is not at the bottom of the lowest point of the roof.

The scuppers which are now level with the rest of the flat roof.

Before the series roof leaks and subsequent repairs, the scuppers for this flat roof were about an inch above the roof line. This poor design left small stagnant pools of rainwater reliant solely on evaporation for removal after storms. All water needs to infiltrate a roof is time. A reoccurring pool left on a flat surface roof has all the time in the world over the course of years. So, at some point if the scuppers were not fixed or the roof replaced before failing, water infiltration would have been a major problem (it was… it is not now!).

Easy ability making electrical changes at the panel

Breaking up overloaded circuits? Thinking of installing a pool? How easy is it to run an additional line for the pump?

At one time my property had a pool. The photo below was the solution for an inaccessible electrical panel due to location and a flat surface roof over the garage. If I want to break up any of the circuits it will be more of a re-balancing act of different lines since I do not have easy access to the panel.

The additional line to the pool pump runs along conduit outside the house, through the attic to the other side of the house, where it exits into more conduit and runs underground to the location of the removed pool equipment.

Correct electrical layout

How about the circuit for your refrigerator being the same one in the garage where you run your power tools? Did you know all your bathrooms are on the same circuit? How about that circuit also hosting an outlet in front of the house and on the back porch, too? Troubling. When a hair drier blew the circuit breaker, the uncanny result was that none of the circuits outside worked… until we realized they were all on the same circuit! One circuit had about 18 outlets AND popped outside of the house for additional two more, with no GFCI. All three of these situations are, simply put, a fire waiting to happen.

Consider mapping the circuits in the house ahead of time in your prospective house to see what problems are waiting for you.

Your electrical diagram doesn’t have to be fancy.

No Stairs

An entryway with a step down is an unwelcoming entrance. Imagine visiting a house for the first time and breaking an ankle on the way in. Not the best design choice from a liability, safety and medical standpoint. You must maintain constant vigilance against possible falls and sprains when inviting friends and family into your home.

If this is your first visit the entryway is a dangerous place to tread with this step.

Actual signs advertising a change in elevation while hosting a graduation party.

An actual flight of stairs may or may not be a problem depending on your family’s needs/abilities.

Bathtub

Having a bathtub is better for resale because it opens up your audience to families with children.

Number of windows

When I moved in, my house had grid-style single pane windows. The only thing better is to have no windows at all!

Needless to say this was one energy hog that had to get fixed yesterday! Except the sticker shock for low-E Argon filled windows that stand up to the Arizona summer stopped me in my tracks. It took two years and three phases to replace all sixteen windows in my house. SIXTEEN!

My next house better be a castle with turrets on all four corners to have 16 windows. Better yet, it would be OK if the previous owner already replaced all of the windows.

Last, but not least, location and size of the master closet

Despite the points listed above and their matching entertaining stories, consider expanding your original must-have home features list. Certainly, we all learn from experience. Many of the items on my must-have home feature list are a result of homes I have used and interacted with in the past. Individual to many potential home items and/or features may not seem like an issue when only viewed through the lens of “potential”. However, once you spend quality time inside any given house, you end up discovering problems you may or may not have the ability to fix.

Many times we fall in love with a house due to some jaw dropping feature– an amazing kitchen or a pool with a grotto in the backyard. Take a step back and imagine the house without the flashy upgrades. Is it really functional? Is there some element like a poorly designed roof that is just a ticking time bomb? Does a house under consideration have all of your “gotta-have-it” items and/or features plus what is really necessary to be a worry free home?

On the other hand, what are the obvious and perhaps hidden features that are positive? An unexpected design may actually be a godsend. Second, the eye candy may be worth it because it saves you the time, money and hassle from doing a remodel.

However, if you appreciate the eye candy, but it is not your flavor, reconsider! If you plan on taking it out anyway, think about choosing another house needing updating so you aren’t adding more to the landfill. Someone else will love the other house and enjoy it for what it is.

Other times there is some sort of tradeoff. Do you really need the formal living room which is rarely used? Consider you will pay extra taxes because of the additional square footage. It may not be worth it. Or maybe you wanted an extra bedroom for an office, but perhaps the formal living room could be used instead? It would be easier to welcome visitors in an office toward the front of your house so they aren’t parading past informal living spaces and bathrooms.

Keeping your must-have home features in the forefront of your mind when comparing different potential houses is essential to ensuring you do not have buyer’s remorse later. Suggestion: write out a checklist, print a copy out for each house you view and fill it out during each tour. In the end, when you are down to a few houses you can compare your notes side by side–literally!

If you are buying for the twentieth time I want to hear from you!

Fully expect a follow on post for all of the items I will learn in the future.