Home shopping tips

Home Business Real Estate Loading

Published: 11/18/2012 - Updated: 1 day ago

BANKRATE.COM

What's missing from your current home? Storage space? Decent parking? Privacy? Chances are you might not have noticed these missing features when you and your home were in the honeymoon phase. But sometime in the first few months, that deficiency became glaringly obvious.

When you tour a home, it's normal to get so caught up in the granite kitchen countertops that you might not notice there's insufficient square footage to butter your morning toast. And while that master bedroom looks stylish and neat, you don't realize that it's the size of a postage stamp.

Sometimes, there's a fix. You can downsize the bedroom furniture. You can install shelving or buy bookcases to add storage. And for privacy, you can put up curtains or a fence.

And sometimes you just have to learn to live with it. Or vow that next time around, you won't make the same mistake.

There's no such thing as too much storage. No one ever walked out of an open house thinking, Nice place, but too many closets. On the other hand, a good staging job can disguise that a home has precious little storage.

This is where it pays to use your X-ray eyes. Visually strip away the furniture in a for-sale home and place your furniture and belongings. Or simply measure -- both the rooms and the closets -- and compare it to what you have now, says Eric Tyson, author of Home Buying for Dummies.

Ditto for kitchen cupboards, pantries and counter space, says Michael Corbett, author of Before You Buy. Those countertops may look spacious until you get out all of your kitchen toys and discover there's not enough room, he says.

Read more:
Home shopping tips