5 Things to Consider When Shopping for a Kid-Friendly Home

When you’re single or newly married and you’re in the market for a new house, the things that you tend to look for center around adult interests—you know, things like if your master bedroom is large enough, if the kitchen has the amenities that you desire and if it’s located within a few miles of your job and favorite restaurants.

However, when you start having children, you realize that your priorities in real estate start to shift a bit. Now it’s more about if the house has additional bathrooms, does it have a big backyard and if it’s in a safe neighborhood.
If you’re currently in the market for a new place to live, that is what this article will seek to address: five things for you to consider when shopping for a kid-friendly house so that you’ll choose a place that both you and your children can call “home”.

Location, location. More than anything else, the first thing that you should consider is the area of town that you want to live in. This doesn’t just consist of the safety of the neighborhood, but also the school zones that are within that area as well as how close you will be to places that you’ll need to frequent often such as the grocery store. It’s also a bonus to live in an area that has other families with children who are around your own kids’ ages.

The size of the yard (front and back). When children are young, they love to spend hours playing outdoors whether it’s with their siblings, their pets or some of their friends. Therefore, you definitely want to be sure that they have plenty of space, both in front and outback to do so.

The amount of bedrooms and bathrooms. If you have one child, this doesn’t tend to be too much of an issue, but if you have several (especially if they consist of both boys and girls), it’s important to have several bedrooms and even more imperative that you have more than one bathroom in the house. So, when you’re inspecting the home, make sure that these two things are on the top of your priority list.

A playroom. We’ve already discussed that it’s a good idea to have enough space to create an outdoor play yard for your children, but it’s also wise to make sure that you house that you’re considering has a playroom too. If there appears to be a limited amount of space but it does have an attic or basement, remember that those are two rooms that can be easily converted into a playroom, if you would like.

Lots of storage space. When you have kids, what tends to come with them is a lot of stuff. From clothes and toys to athletic and electronic equipment, you want to make sure that you have enough storage space where they can put all of their things; that way, your house won’t look cluttered. So, if the homes that you are looking at have small closets, no garage or very little room to build a few bookshelves or storage units, honestly, we recommend that you look elsewhere. A home needs to feel comfortable and a big part of that consists of having a lot of room for everything you and your children have.