Location, Character/unique, Trees, Distance to work, Nearest hospital quality/reputation

For our current home: 1. Location 2.Layout (3BR + space for an office. The office need shot down a lot of houses, because you could not tell if one could be worked in until viewing) 3. Parcel size (at least 6500sq'--not getting acres in my area for budget) 4. Value/resale potential (Never wanted to end up under water or have to sell for a loss) 5. Air Conditioning

Our needs might be different next time we purchase.

1. Location

2. flood zone?

3. Property dynamics - lot size, corner lot?, major thorough fare access?, shopping & eateries, schools.

4. Price and how does it fit within the median price point of surrounding homes.

It's a challenge to find something that fits your tastes exactly. I recently purchased one but had been looking for 2 years or thereabouts. It's crazy hard to say the least, especially if you're in the price points of competing with 'all cash' offers.

1. Minimal Groundskeeping

2. Neighbors Must Keep Their Property Upkeep Looking Good

3. Kitchen Doesn't Need Cosmetic Work

4. Location

5. Services like cable, phone, etc. have to have multiple companies available. This is better for options and pricing.

1. Location, it has to be in the best school district for grade, junior and high schools.

2. Orientation, since we are in the USA, it has to be north/south facing, backyard facing south, prefer bedrooms on east side.

3. Floor plan.

4. Lot size.

5. Material quality and workmanship of the items that are hard to change, such as foundation, building structure, roof, exterior walls...etc.

I've lived all over the country and bought a lot of homes at different stages in my life.

Location (It was typical in many of these locations that buyers would typically select private schools even if good public schools were available)

Architectural style (I like the old stuff and appreciate good design)

Quality of construction (Old is usually better than new, but not necessarily)

Plenty of dirt but not decay (Dirt is an opportunity, decay is a money pit)

Good value for price (You make your money when you buy, not when you sell)

Last and most important, it's a business deal. I've learned my lesson on this one many years ago. Don't give your heart to a house. It will break your heart. So, don't do it.

I just downsized, I was looking for:

1. Location

2. Single story

3. CAC or the ability to add CAC

4. Square footage

5. Fenced yard for the dogs, or yard large enough to fence for the dogs.

Here was my list for when looking for our current house, along with exactly what we got.

1. Location - close to work. Got it.

2. Detached garage. Got it, except that there was no way to get to it from the drive way.

3. Old house. Yep, it is old

4. Basement. Yep and it is old too, with 6' ceilings and lots of spiders.

5. Fenced backyard. Got it on one side only.

Location (Yes, Salti- I am incorporating school system into this analysis.)

Price

Floorplan

Light

Structural Integrity

1. Location -- Includes schools, city services, proximity to medical care, stores and transportation (road, rail, airport), but remote from noise and pollution. A prized area within a well-run municipality where you get value for your taxes.

2. Character -- A 'sweet' house with character, large rooms, details, flow. A house that fits into its neighborhood. NOT 'historic'. NOT in an HOA.

3. One Level -- Basement. Wood and tile flooring. (I have asthma.) Attached garage. Primarily nine-foot ceilings (not higher or lower).

4. Windows & View -- Light and bright, southern exposure, mature landscaping in an area with one-plus acre lots (privacy).

5. Structurally Sound -- Good mechanicals. Insulation. Masonry construction. No electrical or plumbing 'surprises'. No wood decks or shake roofs. Flood-free zone.

Of course, we couldn't FIND this house, so we did a teardown and built it. LOL (You will also note that I haven't listed affordability. That's covered where I told you we built the house.)

For our condo empty nest home (finally purchased last year):

bordering on on green space with a view.

boat slip included.

any updates or repair to be affordable and easy.

space for gardening and feeding birds.

lots of natural light.

Haven't seen this mentioned and it is important to me - great curb appeal or the potential for great appeal.

1) Location: City not suburbs, good school system, ideally walking distance to errands, playground (not so easy in this city, but we managed). Not in a flood zone. Busy road not so much of an issue.

2) Flow. Saw a surprising amount of houses with weird extensions, or just completely awkward flow. Single-floor houses had priority.

3) Sunny great room with lots of windows, but without super high ceilings. Turns out I don't feel comfortable in rooms with with very high ceilings (vaulted or two-story), which I had no clue about until we started considering houses.

4) Vibe. Can't explain this one, and I can't even believe I'm writing it. But I've been in houses that could have been acceptable but the feel was off. And when we walked into the one we eventually bought, we knew it was our top contender.

5) Soundness. No foundation or settlement issues, no termites, and well maintained. Not a house that changed hands too often. And after seeing a whole bunch, not a recent construction in my price range.

@homechef59

'Don't give your heart to a house, it will break your heart.'

^ Never heard that one before.

If you don't like your house and can't afford a remodel, buy new sheets for the bed. A good nights sleep is far more important.

1. Updates: all the major stuff is fresh (systems, roof, windows, kitchen, etc.).

The ratio of cost of updating/renovating to added value to the home’s base line is never, ever 100% (I don’t care what home improvement shows claim), and in my experience has been more like 50% with a lot of DIY "sweat equity” even to get that high of a return). I am now preferring that someone else has already done those things on their dime before I buy -- preferably fairly recently before I buy, but without being a “flip."

Something will eventually break my heart anyway--I'd rather it be a house..))

Lys: why do you say no to a house that has changed hands often? Any particular reasons?

1 - Location (houses in neighborhood must be kept up).

2 - Single Story.

3 - Two car garage.

4 - Architectural style.

5 - Good backyard for dogs.

Interesting question, it is hard to narrow it down to 5. We had a long list the last time we bought a house.

1. The school district was absolutely the highest priority because we have school aged children, although realtors told us we could buy in a neighboring town and use "open enrollment." I didn't want to take a chance on that being available, although those homes were considerably less expensive.

2. Location: We wanted to be walking distance to schools, stores, restaurants. Not on a busy street. My oldest wanted to be within a mile of the high school, and we got that. It is nice to walk to the stadium to watch football games on Friday nights and the location gives the kids a lot of freedom. Although it is a little too easy to eat out living here, negating any benefits of walking or biking more;)

3. Able to accommodate us as we age. I wanted at least the master bedroom, a full bath, and laundry on the first floor, not a lot of steps to get in the front door. We eliminated one house because of a steep driveway.

4. Accommodated our needs (bedrooms, office space, bathrooms). We have three minor children, so we preferred to look at 4BR homes, but didn't rule out houses that had potential to add a fourth bedroom. I work from home, so I needed office space or a space that could be used as an office. We wanted at least two baths. The house had to have a space for our piano and a dining area that was large enough for our table that seats 8. The dining area was the toughest to find.

Number 5 on the list depends on who you talk to. Mr. Hammer wanted a three car garage (we got that) and a luxurious master bath (didn't get that). Kids wanted something that backs up to a woods or ravine (didn't get that). I would have liked to have a tub in the master bath, but put more priority on finding a place my spouse was not allergic to. Our last house had something in it that triggered his asthma and we couldn't figure out what it was in 14 years of living there. I am happy to say that he has been breathing well ever since we moved in.

When we were shopping for land, or an existing home with land, in Tennessee:

1. Acreage and privacy. We were looking for 5+ acres. Our first purchase was a beautiful, sloped, wooded 24 acre lot in a development. We sold that to buy our current property, which is an existing house and several outbuildings on a flat, 15 acre lot with fenced pastures. Bigger and more expensive than we planned, but the greenbelt tax exemption helps.

2. Dream house for me - finally, finally, after years of remodeling fixer uppers, I would have my dream home, complete with my dream kitchen! We were planning on building exactly that until we swapped properties. Unfortunately, the 1-story ranch farmhouse that we have now is not my dream house. At all. It's definitely another fixer upper. But we have plans to remodel after living in it for a few months. At least we can live in the cute little guesthouse during construction!

3. Location - in Franklin, and close enough to Nashville and preferably close to Leiper's Fork. Short drive to downtown. Good schools. We checked all of those boxes with both properties.

4. Outbuildings - a large shop for DH and horse facilities for DD were on our list. We have both of these with our current property, and this was the main reason we swapped and decided on the remodeling route again rather than building new. There's a 5,000 st barn with 2 bathrooms that will be used for DH's shop (plus maybe a man cave, some bunk rooms, and an exercise room), and a horse barn and riding arena for DD. We also have a 1 bedroom, 1 bath guest house with a full kitchen, which was an unexpected bonus.

5. A view - we would have had a beautiful view of rolling hills from the highest point of the first sloped lot. We now have beautiful views of our large pond out front and our pastures all around, and also some surrounding hills even though our lot is mostly flat.

6. Plenty of space for friends and family to visit. We have the guest house and a guest room, but I'm hoping to add on some more guest space with the remodel. We have adult children and lots of siblings with families. Perhaps we can include a small apartment over a garage addition.

Edited to add that I guess I don't read directions very well, because I listed 6 things instead of 5.

I think #6 is the same as #2 though - my dream house would have lots of guest space and a great kitchen :)

@St561 W - Houses that changed hands often didn't seem to be as well maintained. They may look good, but when we started digging into it we'd discover that any meaningful improvement usually preceded the spate of buying and selling (if you look at age of furnace, AC, roof, appliances, kitchen and bathroom updates, combined with other clues like wood soffit repainting, mortar in brick entrance stairs etc.). Here there are a lot of military families, so there is nothing indicative of serious problems in the house if it changed hands often, but if you know you are in a house temporarily, you make different kinds of decisions. We wanted a home for the long haul and we finally bought from the original builders (60 years before!). They clearly did their best with the house, and we have been very pleased.

Houses that change hands many times may have some hidden defect, that you don't find out until you move into it. Living in it is knowing it first hand.

Unfortunately, some decide not to fix anything and pass it off to the next buyer.

(It may not be the house, it could be the neighbors?)

1. Location, which includes being in the right school district, not on a busy street, and not on a corner lot.

2. Garage space. 3 car garage was the absolute minimum.

3. Workable layout. Minimum 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, office space, and a bonus room.

4. Lot size- 1/4 acre or backing to open space

5. Natural light

I'm assuming price is a given --- for most of us.

Location, especially walkability, schools, quietness (no highway, train, air planes)

Lots of natural light

No major structural issues

Layout

1 - Location ( low crime, good schools, no railroads, trains, low traffic area and not to close to large apartment complex areas),

2- Neighbors, clean/neat yards both back and front and not to close. The fewer neighbors the better so backing up to a conservation lot would be ideal.

3- 2 or 3 car garage.

4 - Move in ready with only very minor cosmetic repairs needed.

5 - so 1-4 are just for quick screening, then 5 would be the actual house criteria.... master bedroom on 1st floor, his/her closets, bath tub in master, office with a view, eat in kitchen and not open concept floor plan, back and front porch or lanai would give bonus points

If we assume location (neighborhood, low-traffic street, schools, etc) is always 1

And Price is always 2

then the remaining ones are

1. Layout of the home--open floor plan

2. First floor master

3. Fantastic workable kitchen

4. Garage--bigger is better. Bigger than that is better to

5. Private outdoor space

Only six of the above respondents mentioned structure/structural integrity of the house!

An inspection would likely pick up problems. But why spend money if you can see the obvious yourself?

My five:

*Location, location, location.

*NEIGHBOURS. (Yes, I AM shouting!) Any neighbouring property with barking dogs, overgrown shrubbery, inoperative cars in the driveway, wind chimes or weeds gets my thumbs down. I can never forget a business colleague who bought his first home attached to a "halfway" house. Interesting crowd hanging out there at all hours of the day and night.

*Structural integrity. Only put it third as I tend to demolish most homes I've bought.

Given the above responses, geographical location definitely plays a part. I am in an NYC suburb. When we were buying 3 years ago, our criteria were:

1. Location - we only looked in one town due to train commute into NYC. We didn't know anyone in town. Chose a realtor randomly on the internet and did a one day visit (we lived on the west coast at the time). Wanted walking distance to town/train. Chose private schools for children, as do all our neighbors (public schools are terrible but that is known when purchasing here and doesn't affect home values).

2. House style and structural integrity - we wanted and older, traditional house and no major renovations. Chose a center hall colonial. Love it. House only needed cosmetic updates - we painted entire interior, did have to take down some wallpaper but also kept some, redid hardwoods. We knew HVAC was old and we ended up replacing that within 6 months.

3. Walls! - we did not want an open floor plan!!! We wanted the house as in tact/original as possible. Would not have settled for open plan.

4. Half bath (at least) on first floor or the potential to put one in - so many homes here do not have them. Was a must for me with babies at the time and an elderly parent nearby. Our house has a full bath on first floor.

5. A nice, but not huge, yard - we didn't want a ton of upkeep for the yard. It's expensive as it is with the smallish lot we have. It is a great size for us.

Lucky for us, I believe our house sat on the market for a long time because it was overpriced and people couldn't see past the decorating/furniture. There was wallpaper, lots of furniture, a dog and an elderly owner who was in bed when we viewed the house. She and her husband were lovely and took pretty good care of the house. We love it and I imagine we will be here for a long time.

Laughing at worthy's post! I guess structural integrity is actually my #1 thing... A big reason I can't find a good house around here is the faulty foundations that nearly all of them have (it's popular to put slabs on clay soil, instead of pier and beam, in my area, and people are told to "water" the house... sigh).

In my head, I equate architectural integrity with structural, but I guess I really shouldn't... So add structural to my list. :-)

1) location -- which includes walkable, near to park/library, market and post office, reasonable drive to work (when I bought my current home my dd was 8 yrs old and I had to find a house not only close to work but with a daycare that opened by 0630 and was on my route to work), stable well- kept neighborhood with a mix of age ranges esp. enough in my age group, trees, affordable taxes with good city services, schools, quiet (trains, freeway, jets), no stinky breweries/other industries nearby. Location encompasses a lot!

2. Plenty of light and big windows , good air circulation, but with strategically place trees for summer temp moderation and winter wind protection (or the potential for me to plant the same)

3. Other style/design/layout/condition of house. I prefer older homes with rooms, real woodwork, hardwood, basements, and some unique features or charm, at the least cozy and comfortable (but, whether colonial, tudor revival, Spanish stucco, craftsman etc.-- all work for me) Small is good for me, less than 1500 sf, and with a screened in porch and 1.5 baths! Updated wiring would be a huge plus.

4. A sunny and large enough lot with good drainage to have my dwarf fruit trees, berries, trellises, flowers etc and some space from the next door neighbors. Preferably neighbors that don't smoke, but how can you screen for that?

5) To drill down the mostly general things above to five specifics: Natural light, lot size and condition, walkable neighborhood, screened porch, city services

We knew very little about buying a house, but we've been here happily for 30 years with no remodelling so I guess we chose well! Here are the criteria I remember:

1. Age, we wanted an older home that felt like my grandparent's 1931 house with plaster walls, hardwood floors and architectural charm. Ours was built in 1932.

2. Fenced yard so we could get a dog.

3. Room to play string quartets in the living room.

4. No big deciduous trees. My husband doesn't like raking leaves.

5. Location, central because my husband was in school and we didn't know where he would find a job. We live under the flight path of a well used international airport.

When I bought my present home:

1) location - ease of work commute.

2) privacy - not into the coke dealer overhead in the prior condo wanting to intimidate, or, frankly, anyone overly concerned about my activities. This would come in with a nice private yard.

3) Kept up. IE, the only improvements I'd have to do would be voluntary, as in for taste reasons.

4) A place to garden.

5) an anti-open-concept home -- walls for cabinets (kitchen), hanging artwork, having bookcases.

Now, having bought said house, I'd add in two more things, and am making my current build around them:

1 Plus) A truly functional kitchen.

2 Plus) A flat driveway for New England winters, with preferably circular access.

Oh, PS, I was fine with the neighbors next door having a car up on blocks. It guaranteed anything I'd do on my own property would look better... ;)

PS, I remember my mother's first two comments when she saw this house back in 1991 (when I bought it):

"There's a car up on blocks next door!"

Me: "Yep. It's not about to make any noise, is it?"

"It's going to cost a fortune to install wall to wall carpeting!"

Me: "With good oak flooring, I don't WANT wall to wall!"

(Now, if she'd said something about what turned out to be severe kitchen dysfunctionality in layout and size, she'd have been on to something...)

I've lived in this house 32 years now, so I guess it was a good choice, but we have extensively remodeled multiple times.

We were looking first for Location - we wanted to be near where other girls who were in my daughter's class at her private school, lived. Good choice - they have proven to be life-long friends.

Curb appeal. I could not come home to an ugly house. Ours was a "plain jane" but we've made it quite charming - it had "potential".

Floorplan - a house must "work". Good flow and a good floorpan are often linked by load bearing walls and trying to change that can be VERY costly. Buy a house with good traffic flow.

No HOA. We had three dogs at the time and many house we looked at were in subdivisions with HOA's and fences were not allowed. Immediate "deal killer".

Age - we prefer an older home and while this one was not as old as we would have preferred (built in 1948 - we prefer pre-WWII), at least it was very well built - plaster walls, nice millwork, good hardwood floors.

When one has one weekend in which to find a house, it means many things just have to not factor in, but the ones I've listed were the most important ones to us and they did work for us. We've fixed the things that didn't over the past 32 years.

1. Location

2. Acreage & Privacy. Starting out we'd lived (rented) in a really old farm home on 70 acres. We really enjoyed the privacy and knew we couldn't afford a nice home on this amount of property so we had to make concessions.

3. Good bones. Hard to find the perfect home on the perfect lot so we knew we'd probably need to do some remodeling and we didn't want a money pit. We paid for an inspection before making an offer on our current home. We'd had an offer on an earlier home fall through at the last minute and we wanted to avoid getting too attached to a piece of property if hard negotiations were needed.

4. Character. Wanted a house with some unique features that spoke to us. Quirky was OK.

5. Location.

Location (appreciating neighborhood, etc.)

Views

Architecture/good bones

Structurally sound

Size

Location - far enough to enjoy sitting outside without hearing the neighbors

Location - not near any big power lines

Privacy

Not having any easements on the land so that some company wants to drive through my garden to get to a power pole.

As far as the house - one that doesn't require much maintenance.

Location! Good school system/close shopping.

A style I like!

Lower tax rate.

Smaller rather than larger sq ft now that i'm 'getting' older. lol

Single story.

A nice patio/deck. Something I could add on to.

Small yard(fenced)/hopefully SOME landscaping/trees.

Floorplan. NOT open concept.

Wood, not tile floors. Carpet would be easier to remove.

Sidewalks/curbs/street lights.

Finding a house with everything done by home owner:

These would be rare finds and many times if the home owner did them in order to 'just sell the home' they would be done as cheap as possible.

'MOST' people do not invest serious money into things they plan to get rid of. So I think this notion or thought that you are going to go out and find a home that has everything fixed, repaired to your satisfaction is misguided at best... unless you decide to just raise your price range, as many things can be fixed by spending more money.

If you want everything fixed you are looking at buying a new home. Problem with that is home builders are not building starter homes currently. That will cost you depending on location and the housing market in which you reside.

A home is a box on a piece of land, the box can always be replaced or modified -- the exact piece of land, neighbors, surroundings of that land in most cases can not be changed -- unless you have deep pockets and buy up everything around the house.

The house I recently bought is a 1979 prehistoric gem that still has the original light fixtures the little curved glass plates with the little button knob in the center that holds the glass 'plate cover' over the 2 bulb fixture. If you've ever been in a 1980's home you know what I'm talking about. There is only one ceiling fan in this house! The AC is a 1980's model. But does any of this matter when it can all be fixed to 'what I want'. I can be rather picky with things that drive me up the wall. I have been known to move walls and erect others that have offended me over the years...

I had been looking for a house in this area for around 2 years. Made many offers but beat out by 'investors' most likely...

I can tell you the house I bought didn't really influence my decision all that much... the lot size and location of the land is what drew my attention. (It's a corner lot.)

Pretty much nothing has been done to this property other than a crappy paint job, poorly installed laminate flooring. The potential this property has is very good once I spend the hours making it what I want it to be.

No matter how much or how little is done to your home, you can always make it your own. No one knows better what you like, except you.

Location.

Size and yard size.

First floor bathroom and bedroom.

Neighboring houses.

Taxes.

1. Location, location, location, including a sense of community.

Living in an 'up and coming' city, i.e. getting ridiculously pricey ridiculously fast, meant that I chose location first and foremost.

This was the crappiest houses on the block. But it is a GREAT location, one block within the bounds of great schools, a walk score of 97, the friendliest neatest neighbors ever, and 22 (!) kids just going up the street for my son to play with, most are 5 and under.

Other things I wanted and got:

2. Old house

3. Hardwood floors

4. Space to garden

5. Lots of great natural light

The house is such a fixer. But it's cute, and it's ours, and it's a great investment just because of the location.

I wish we would have another 'real' bedroom, a defined dining room, a bigger yard, a decent kitchen, a better bathroom and maybe even two of them.

1. Location -- no suburbs! Within walking distance of coffee shops, boutiques, etc. Far from malls.

2. Small size, small yard -- minimal maintenance.

3. Nice exterior -- doesn't have to look spectacular, but shouldn't look shabby.

4. High ceilings -- we're tall people.

5. Relatively low taxes.

Some of this seems to be dependent upon age/stage of life. As empty nesters/business owners who travel a bit, love new/great restaurants, wonderful live music/entertainment/awesome movie houses that serve dinner/drinks as we watch- this was it for our latest:

1. Location.

We are 1.5 miles away from downtown Austin TX straight in front, a few blocks from the SoCo enterntaiment area (to the right) and the SoLa restaurant area, Zilker Park (music festivals) four blocks to the left.

We also live on a street that is nearly completely isolated. Almost NO traffic, save for us on the short street, Very, very quiet.

And? We wanted a custom, ground-up build. A neighborhood where this is happening, that we just did.

2. Low crime- Eh? We have a bit of crime of opportunity, in this City neighborhood, but are also very protected by 1) being very aware 2) having a security system wired into local law enforcement/fire/EMT that is nearly impenetrable.

3. Great neighbors, mis of people. Our neighborhood has "OGs" who have been here for 50+ years (mostly Mexican, in ethnicity) others who have been steadily moving in within 30, 20, 10 and 5 years. LOVE this place- enough children around so as not to be weird, but mostly just grown ups who want to live quietly.

4. Proximity to airport, for business travel, Quite literally, 10-12 minutes away, door to door. FANTASTIC for the days of "day trips".

5. A view

Both my architect and contractor were a bit skeptical of this, but I KNEW it was there.

Today, we can see- end to end- Austin Texas downtown skyline from inside second story.

Schools? Eh? Our very expensive property taxes are spread locally AS WELL AS through out other areas of TX.

For the first time in my adult life, I ignored schools in favor of all else I wanted. And in case you think this is a"bad resale" idea? You're nuts. 1-5 in our city center are at-home professionals who travel, want close proximity to city (but still quiet) want all the easy access to restaurants/live entertainment, in quiet and Google Fiber etc?

If I were smart, I'd run to the Google campus today, sell tomorrow :)

1. A view. If we were going to move into the city, we wanted a fabulous city view, and one that could never be taken away from us (as our city is rapidly growing and new buildings are sprouting up constantly). Included in "view" is lots of sunlight (our last place was in the shade).

2. Location from work: biking distance for the hubby, near an airport for me

3. Maintenance-free: our building has an on-site maintenance manager, meaning we can leave our keys and go off traveling for months without worry.

4. Aging-in-place friendly: While we are still fairly young (50s), the hubby has some emerging health issues which was one of the drivers of moving now rather than later. So we wanted an elevator building, with no stairs. (Compromised here: our place has one set of stairs which could easily be retrofitted with a lift if necessary).

5. Garage parking: we've not had covered parking so this is a huge benefit. No more scraping off snow, no more fighting over street parking spots.

What the place lacked:

A decent kitchen layout, flow for entertaining, storage, all 3 baths needed major updates, and the laundry was poorly configured. Because it met our top 5 requirements and was priced right, we bought and renovated the rest.

Compare that to our requirements when buying our last house:

1. Location: within the kids' school district so we wouldn't disrupt their studies.

2. 4 bedrooms / 3 baths: so the kids could each have their own room, and we'd have room for an office/guests.

3. Move-in ready: as busy working parents, there was no time or inclination to renovate anything. Basically we were looking at recent flips, as our area has very few new construction offerings.

4. An outdoor area, even if small: had a deck and a small backyard.

5. AFFORDABLE. Back then it was quite difficult to find a place with those requirements in our price range. Took us 9 months of hunting, and lost out on many bids in the process.

Things on your list would change while you're going through different life stages. For a young family with children, a good neighborhood and a good school dist would be on the top list. For empty nesters, a good school dist won't be important to them anymore. Many of them want to escape to the country, to the water front. For seniors, a good neighborhood, walking distance to churches, stores, doctor's offices, hospitals might be on their top lists.

For discussion purposes, I wish you had started a separate thread to plug your blog. It is nice, but I agree you left out some important things, such as those summerrhythm brought up.

The part about architectural depth, I'm not sold on. Floor plan is important. But the depth sounds opposite from what most would desire. It is inefficient to have to walk a long way from one room's purpose to reach another room for a different purpose, or to retrieve something. And those long hallways--I hate them. They are dark, boring, depressing and claustrophobic. Few things make one feel more crowded than having to frequently squeeze past other people in a narrow hallway.

The blog posting is spam, repeated on a number of forums. Please flag spam when you see it.

Hi there! I'm sorry, I thought it might be nice for people since it was the exact topic of the question

In terms of leaving things out, I don't think you can specify for every situation, that's why I mentioned location as a whole as something to consider.

Regarding the architectural depth, this was actually proven in a big scientific study about stress and living conditions. It might not be practical or what you want, but in general, crowdedness is a trigger for stress, which leads to people retrieving from social life. I think it's something you can overlook easily and it's good to think about this when buying a home. Here is the reference if you'd like to check it: Evans, G. W., Lepore, S. J., & Schroeder, A. (1996). The role of interior design elements in human responses to crowding. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(1), 41.

Location, we want to walk to town with post office, restaurants, shopping and entertainment. Two car garage parking for us and guests, mail delivered to door and sidewalks. Never concerned with structure as we always rebuild. The things we look to avoid schools or park with playground or fields these are often noisy and increase congestion. We do not buy homes that have freshly remodeled kitchens, baths or flooring as we don’t want to pay for something we will likely rip out. Lastly we avoid a property that looks at a commercial anything.

We are lucky with our current home great neighborhood with all we enjoy and two blocks to a nice midsize town. It would be my dream home if not for the freezing Midwest winters, crazy high property taxes and the absence of mountains and ocean.