The choice to purchase a new home is a major decision for anyone. Once you’ve settled that you do want to buy a home, there are many more options you’ll have to face; one of the most important is the ideal size of a home to best fit your family and lifestyle. Here are some tips so that you can choose the right size home to meet your needs:
Bigger Isn’t Always Better
You may initially start your home search thinking that size doesn’t really matter. As long as it seems big enough to live in, you don’t care how large it actually ends up being. The truth is that bigger isn’t always better. A large home requires more money—and time—to maintain. Unless you’re using the space, you could just end up wasting your money on maintaining a big house for no reason.
Budget For Maintenance
A crucial aspect of your home purchase decision is to determine what your budget is going to be for home maintenance. A bigger home requires more time and money to take care of, particularly if you’re looking at homes with substantial front and backyards. As for the interior, there are cleaning, repair and energy costs for heating and cooling. Discuss your budget with your partner and your real estate agent to decide the square footage you can realistically handle.
Look At All Sizes
Once you get an idea of the size range that will fit your needs, it’s time to take some tours. Search for homes that are in the appropriate size range that you determined. This isn’t so much about evaluating potential purchases as it is about determining if that size range will fit what you have in mind. Home tours will give you a better idea of what you want the square footage of your home to be and how you want those square feet distributed throughout the bedrooms, common areas and exterior.
Narrowing down the ideal size of home for your needs will dramatically help in your search. There are of course several other factors to consider when purchasing your next home, but next to price and location, size is right up there among the most important.
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