Consider Home Plan Above Square Feet When Buying a Home

“Oh wow, this home has got huge rooms!”

This is often a striking exclamation made my home seekers and buyers when they go on a tour of a proposed new home. Whenever anyone begins the process of looking for a new home, size is generally one of the top considerations. Along with budget and desired location, room count and square footage are always among the top priorities of many homebuyers.

 

We seem to have this long-standing culture teaches us to believe that bigger is usually better, but not all square feet are created equal when it comes to a home’s layout. Yes, everyone wants a home that is big enough to spread out and accommodate all the stuff we collect – and it’s not easy to dispute that more is more in terms of closet space, especially in apartment living – but just because a home has more square footage, that doesn’t make it better. After all, how much is wasted space really worth?

 

Homebuyers can easily get excited about seeing a home within their budget that is listed with a big square footage number, only to then be disappointed when they step foot into the space. A big home may have been priced within budget because of an awkward layout, wasted space or a major shortcoming, like terrible views or an undesirable location.

 

How Usable is the Space?
This is the big one. No matter how big a room is, if it’s awkwardly shaped, it won’t be easy to set up furniture or be enjoyable to live in. Don’t forget that a home’s square footage also includes hallways, closets and bathrooms, all of which are important, but you don’t really live in these spaces. You want the square footage to be allocated to the rooms you spend the most time in – and for you, that might be your bedroom, the living room, the den or the kitchen.

 

Look at the floor plan. This will tell you a ton about the home before you even set foot in it. You can’t really live in the hallway, and large hallways can make the floor plan seem ill-planned and inelegant.

 

No matter the square footage, if the layout is badly planned, a home may not feel inviting or spacious. Even a large home may lack logical flow, and if the layout doesn’t really work, it can be very difficult to create a gracious and welcoming feeling. Over time, architects have changed the way they plan home layouts to better suit the needs of each era’s homebuyers. In recent years, the idea of the great room – a large family room that performs triple duty as kitchen, living room and dining room – has been particularly trendy, especially as kitchens have become increasingly the centre of the action. This has created more usable square footage, as walls between these rooms have been eliminated.

 

But for some, this means that more traditional graciousness has also fallen by the wayside in favour of efficiency, as many architects have jettisoned a foyer or formal dining room. In the end, each home’s square footage is allocated differently, and while some buyers are willing to sacrifice function or flow for needed space, the large majority may not be willing to pay for square footage that doesn’t make sense.

 

For a homebuyer trying to get a feel for how many square feet they need, it’s recommended to go to tour the homes. Seeing homes in person is the best way to get an idea of how much space you need.

 

But what about when you’re in the early stages, before stepping foot in potential homes? It’s advised that you skip over total square footage and instead focus on floor plan and individual room sizes. Think about your needs in terms of furniture and the alignment, like do you want all your kids on the same floor?

 

It has to do with the way the whole floor plan is designed. An open kitchen always has the advantage of making a space appear larger than when a kitchen is separated by a wall.