Avoiding Houses with Bad Layout

Published by cravat | Filed under Buyer / Seller Tips, Miscellaneous, Real Estate, Shout Outs, Uncategorized

Buyers may not know a bad layout design when they first view it, but they will know if something does not feel correct about the house. Usually that kind of reaction is brought about by a bad layout. Additionally, it is usually very hard to rectify a bad design without even to spend too much money. Before you decide on that a bad layout can be improved by easily moving walls, ask a contractor to identify to you if the walls you want to move or omit are load bearing walls because, if so, it might be impractical or financially unfeasible. 

Typical Bad Layout Designs 

Owners can easily turn into unaware to the plan after living in the similar area for couple of years. The simple day to day thing become a rot after some time and this may not make any distinction to an owner on how a property is steered but buyers will mostly be turned off by a totally bad design or layout. Here are a few frequent criticisms I hear from buyers who definitely will not opt to purchase a home with one of these features: 

Staircase Facing the Entrance

This is bad Feng Shui. Any buyer carries a certain belief with this ancient Chinese tradition which states that stairways positioned directly in front of a door or an entrance allows energy to escape. Honestly speaking, being welcome by a staircase right away upon coming in the home is provoking and off-putting to some people. It simply is there in front of your face and it is really irritating. Stairways that are wide, curved and well lighted and off the side are the most acceptable. 

Dining Room at the Center

In this type of design, when you enter a home, you walk right pass through the living area into the dining. If you are going to the kitchen, bedrooms, you must walk through the dining room because all rooms are linked through several entrances to the dining area. 

Connected Bedrooms

In some location, appraisers would not think about the price of linked rooms and even consider two adjoined rooms as only one. For discretion purpose alone, buyers prefer an individual entrance to each room. 

Bedrooms situated near or area of Living / Dining Room

It is unattractive to situate a bedroom entrance or door that leads directly from an area where guests gather. Other than the noise that it produces, it limits your privacy as well. Would you want to look at a bed while eating? Most people simply want to dine, have fun in the family or game room without being able to view the bedroom. 

Bad Location of Guest Bathroom

It is a turn-off looking down a hallway when you enter a home and immediately having a full view of a bathroom at the end of it. Older properties place the bathroom at the end of a hall instead on the other side. When your try closing the door to the guest bathroom is very unappealing so that is not a good solution. A bathroom which is reachable only by walking through a laundry area is unattractive as well. 

Satellite Living Rooms

This kind of layout generally puts the living room off to only one side of the entrance and it links to no other room other than the entry. This is usually seen on older homes that have been modified, walls were moved. People do not want to see and feel that they are disconnected from the rest of the home. In new properties, the style is to move away from building homes with living rooms and changing those areas with huge room or expanded family rooms.